Equipment made with polymer allows the removal of excess alcohol in the fuel
In an article recently published in Chemical Engineering Research and Design, a high-impact journal, chemical engineer Harrson Silva Santana presents a microdevice that allows the removal of excess alcohol from biodiesel, normally carried out in rotary evaporators in the laboratory and in distillation columns on an industrial scale.
In these columns, the alcohol/biodiesel mixture, introduced into the base, is heated and the vaporized alcohol leaves the upper end and then returns to the liquid phase upon cooling. Now, this entire process can be carried out, with high efficiency, using microdevices.
Microdevices, manufactured using a polymer and which do not occupy more than 5 cm2, have an inlet through which the mixture is introduced and two outlets, one lower and the other upper, through which liquid biodiesel and vaporized alcohol exit, respectively, upon heating and which can also return to the liquid phase upon cooling. The difference is that in this case the process occurs in channels with hydraulic diameters of around 300 micrometers, that is, 3 times larger than the average diameter of a strand of hair. According to the researcher, in the future microdevices may be developed that combine heating and cooling operations, responsible, respectively, for the separation of components and condensation of alcohol vapors. These two combined effects can be made possible with the use of Peltier plates.
The work is part of a line of research guided and maintained by professor Osvaldir Taranto, from the Department of Process Engineering, Faculty of Chemical Engineering (FEQ) at Unicamp.
Explanations
Biodiesel is normally produced by the transesterification reaction with excess alcohol to shift the equilibrium of the reaction towards the products. Then the excess alcohol is removed by distillation and can be reused in the process. Although the thesis developed by the researcher focuses, as the title says, on “Synthesis of biodiesel in microchannels”, (see below the list of articles originating from it), it also addresses the purification of the product, which gave rise to the publication initially mentioned.
The work carried out therefore focused on computational and experimental investigation of the processes of both synthesis and purification of biodiesel in microchannels, from the product obtained from the reaction of vegetable oil and alcohol in the presence of a basic catalyst. Harrson emphasizes: “The study had three distinct phases: the computational one, which involved simulations, the construction of microreactors for the production of biodiesel and the construction of the evaporator to remove excess alcohol.”
The researchers clarify that in the literature there are studies that evaluate the application of microdevices in the synthesis of biodiesel, but few studies apply the microscale in the purification of this fuel, present modeling techniques, or rather, are dedicated to simulations that may allow the optimization of synthesis and separation processes and the microdevices used.
In reality, says Professor Osvaldir, “there was no computer simulation in the area, hence the idea of implementing it. Furthermore, although the production of biodiesel was already studied in microdevices, conventional equipment was considered for the separation of alcohol. We then had the idea of studying the entire process using microdevices.” Therefore, after numerical and experimental synthesis tests, the purification of biodiesel in microchannels was studied in the same way and processes were simultaneously developed for the production of microdevices used in both situations.
This processing required Harrson to also work on the construction of microdevices that followed a previously studied architecture, both in the process of synthesis and separation of the components of the biodiesel obtained. This even led him to an internship at the University of Glasgow, Scotland.
Expectations
Professor Osvaldir enthusiastically considers that this is a study that is just beginning and that will advance a lot, due to investments in this area in other countries. Processing units can use as many microdevices as necessary to, for example, replace a distillation column for scale production. Microreactors, already produced, can meet the needs of a pharmaceutical industry in which the active ingredient of medicines is measured in micrograms. With the obtaining and use of microsieves, viable today with 3D printers, microchannels could enable the desalination of seawater to serve small communities or even the production of highly pure water for medical procedures.
published worksThe computer simulations and experiments carried out led to six publications in international journals, produced even before the defense of the thesis, a fact that impressed the committee members who considered reading the thesis just a formality, as the published articles attested to its quality. Are they:
SANTANA, H.S.; SANCHEZ, GB; TARANTO, OP Evaporation of excess alcohol in biodiesel in a microchannel heat exchanger with Peltier module. Chemical Engineering Research & Design, v. 124, p. 20-28, 2017.
SANTANA, HS; TORTOLA, DS; SILVA Jr, JL; TARANTO, OP Biodiesel synthesis in micromixer with static elements. Energy Conversion and Management, v. 141, p. 28-39, 2017.
SANTANA, H.S.; TORTOLA, S.; KINGS, yeah. M.; SILVA, JL; TARANTO, OP Transesterification reaction of sunflower oil and ethanol for biodiesel synthesis in microchannel reactor: Experimental and simulation studies. Chemical Engineering Journal, v. 302, p. 752-762, 2016.
SANTANA, HS; SILVA Jr, JL; TARANTO, OP Numerical simulations of biodiesel synthesis in microchannels with circular obstructions. Chemical Engineering and Processing: Process Intensification, v. 98, p. 137-146, 2015.
SANTANA, HS; AMARAL, RL; TARANTO, OP Numerical study of mixing and reaction for biodiesel production in spiral microchannel. Chemical Engineering Transactions, v. 43, p. 1663-1668, 2015.
SANTANA, HS; SILVA Jr, JL; TARANTO, OP Numerical simulation of mixing and reaction of Jatropha curcas oil and ethanol for synthesis of biodiesel in micromixers. Chemical Engineering Science, v.132, p. 159-168, 2015.
The thesis also resulted in the publication of a book chapter:
SANTANA, HS; SILVA Jr, J. L; TORTOLA, D. S; ANDREOLA, K.; LOPES, MGM; TARANTO, OP Synthesis of Biodiesel from Sunflower Oil in Microreactor with Circular Obstructions. Sunflower Oil: Interactions, Applications and Research. 1st edition: Nova Science Publishers, 2017; and patent filing:
SANTANA, HS; TARANTO, OP MICROREACTOR, USE OF THE MICROREACTOR, MICROFLUID PROCESS FOR SYNTHESIS OF BIODIESEL AND BIODIESEL THUS OBTAINED. 2016, Brazil. Patent: Innovation Privilege. Registration number: BR1020160285089, title: “MICROREATOR, USE OF THE MICROREACTOR, MICROFLUID PROCESS FOR SYNTHESIS OF BIODIESEL AND BIODIESEL SO OBTAINED”, Registration institution: INPI – National Institute of Industrial Property. Deposit: 05/12/2016.
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