Enzymatic production of biodiesel from used/waste vegetable oils: Design of a pilot plant

Sulaiman Al-Zuhair, Asma Almenhali, Iman Hamad, Maryam Alshehhi, Noura Alsuwaidi and Suaad Mohamed

Renewable Energy, 2011, vol. 36, issue 10, 2605-2614

Abstract: In this work, a proposed pilot plant has been designed to produce 1tonh−1 biodiesel (BD) from waste/used vegetable oil using enzymatic approach. Complete material and energy balances were carried out using Excel spreadsheets, and detailed equipment sizing were determined. Immobilized lipase (Novozyme 435) is used as a catalyst in a packed bed bioreactor. The effluent of the reactor is passed though a Liquid–liquid extractor to separate the BD from other components. This is followed by a flash dram and a vacuum distillation column for further purification of the product. In addition, an economic feasibility of this process was assessed. The amount of feed streams of waste oil, methanol and tert-butanol required were found to be 1138, 130 and 7.6kgh−1, respectively. The main units in the proposed plant were designed and the economic feasibility of the process was assessed. It was found that the total capital investment required is about US$ 620,000, which will be paid back within four years of operation.

Keywords: Biodiesel; Lipase; Waste oil; Packed bed bioreactor; Process flow diagram; Pilot plant design (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:36:y:2011:i:10:p:2605-2614

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2010.05.010

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