Skip to main content
2023 AOCS Annual Meeting & Expo Main banner
Icon Legend
This session is not in your schedule.
This session is in your schedule. Click again to remove it.
Back
Video

Industrial Oil Products

Processing

Session:: Biofuels - Part II

Eutectic solvents for the removal of free glycerol using liquid membrane reactor

Wednesday, May 3, 2023
12:40 PM – 1:00 PM MDT
Room: 403
Abstract: The utilization of waste cooking oil (WCO) for biodiesel (fatty acid methyl ester, FAME) production offers various merits in renewable and sustainable fuel production technologies. Typically, various impurities including soap, alcohol, residual catalysts and glycerol are generated during the production processes of FAME. Therefore, the FAME purification process presents as the most challenging and cost intensive stage of FAME production. This work addresses the removal of glycerol from FAME produced from WCO through the novel application of bulk liquid membrane (BLM) developed from conventional solvent extraction methods. Low-cost, quaternary phosphonium salt, polyol-based deep eutectic solvents (DESs) are used as the liquid membrane phase. The stripping and extraction processes were combined into a singular system that enable simultaneous recovery of solvents. In the stripping phase, diethyl ether was introduced to strip the free glycerol from the membrane phase. The extraction and stripping efficiencies were evaluated based on the effect of DES-to-FAME ratio, DES composition, contact time and system stirring speed. The lab-scale BLM system showed appreciable glycerol removal performances based on the DES molar composition of 1:2 (phosphonium salt:diethylene glycol), DES:FAME ratio of 1:1, stirring speed of 150 rpm and contact time of 5 h. The resultant purified FAME has glycerol content that meets the international biodiesel standards of EN 14214 and ASTM D6759.