2013 Optimization of Biodiesel Production
2013 Optimization of Biodiesel Production
Ultrasonics Sonochemistry
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ultson
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: The present work demonstrates the application of a hydrodynamic cavitation reactor for the synthesis of
Received 20 May 2012 biodiesel with used frying oil as a feedstock. The synthesis involved the transesterification of used frying
Received in revised form 13 July 2012 oil (UFO) with methanol in the presence of potassium hydroxide as a catalyst. The effect of geometry and
Accepted 23 July 2012
upstream pressure of a cavitating orifice plate on the rate of transesterification reaction has been studied.
Available online 31 July 2012
It is observed that the micro level turbulence created by hydrodynamic cavitation somewhat overcomes
the mass transfer limitations for triphasic transesterification reaction. The significant effects of upstream
Keywords:
pressure on the rate of formation of methyl esters have been seen. It has been observed that flow geom-
Biodiesel
Used frying oil
etry of orifice plate plays a crucial role in process intensification. With an optimized plate geometry of
Transesterification 2 mm hole diameter and 25 holes, more than 95% of triglycerides have been converted to methyl esters
Hydrodynamic cavitation in 10 min of reaction time with cavitational yield of 1.28 103 (Grams of methyl esters produced per
Joule of energy supplied). The potential of UFO to produce good quality methyl esters has been
demonstrated.
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1350-4177/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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D. Ghayal et al. / Ultrasonics Sonochemistry 20 (2013) 322–328 323
higher than conventional methods. In the present work, the reac- Table 1
tions were carried out using potassium hydroxide as a catalyst. Composition and properties of UFO.
The oil to methanol ratio was taken as 6:1 [7,12–16]. Potassium Property Used frying oil
hydroxide is taken 1% by weight of UFO and the reaction temper- Linoleic acid (%) 88.37
ature was maintained at 60 °C [13]. Along with the raw materials, Oleic acid (%) 6.66
the technology deciding the energy consumption used for biodiesel Stearic acid (%) 4.87
production has major contribution in total production cost. The Palmitic acid (%) 0.12
Saponification value (mg KOH/g) 203
three step mechanism for the base catalyzed transesterification Density (kg/m3) 920
has been reported in the literature [17]. The rate of the reaction Viscosity (mm2/s) 90
can be enhanced by using catalyst which helps to create initial ac- Acid value (mg KOH/g) 2.306
tive ion and also by increasing the mass transfer between oil and
methanol. The mass transfer has a significant impact on the rate
of the reaction. In recent years, various technologies have been oil has passed through a multiple cycles of heating (180–190 °C)
developed for transesterification reaction. These technologies en- and cooling (30–40 °C) to fry vegetable food during a day. The re-
hance reaction rate, reduces required molar ratio of alcohol to sults of HPLC analysis of used frying oil and its properties are sum-
oil, reduces energy input by intensification of mass transfer and marized in Table 1. The UFO contains 95% unsaturated fatty acids
makes product separation easier. It has been reported that the and only 5% saturated fatty acids. The suspended food particles
hydrodynamic cavitation reactor is the most efficient for biodiesel in used frying oil were removed by filtration through a normal
production [18]. Hydrodynamic cavitation is the phenomenon sieve. Methanol (99%, LR grade) and Potassium hydroxide pellets
where cavities are created due to pressure reduction by passing li- (LR grade) were purchased from S.D. Fine-Chem. Ltd., Mumbai,
quid through a constriction (orifice plate or ventury). When liquid India.
flows through the constriction, according to Bernoulli’s principle Sulfuric acid, Silica gel, Sodium sulfate anhydrous (AR grade)
its velocity increases at an expense of pressure. As local pressure were procured from Thomas Baker. The solvents Acetonitrile and
falls below the vapor pressure of the flowing liquid (mixture of acetone (HPLC grade) used in HPLC analysis were purchased from
UFO and methanol in this case), vapor clouds are created in liquid. G. Kuntal Implements. The standards used i.e. methyl linolate,
Sudden collapse of these cavities is due to the regaining of pressure methyl oleate, methyl stearate and methyl linoate were procured
releases tremendous amount of energy locally, increasing the local from Sigma–Aldrich.
temperature and pressure which favors the forward reaction. By
optimizing the geometry of the orifice plate, one can enhance the 2.2. Methods
performance of the cavitation reactor and also the rate of reaction.
As the pressure drop across orifice plates having same flow area re- 2.2.1. Analysis
mains constant, same flow area can be accommodated with differ- The fatty acid compositions of UFO were found out by convert-
ent numbers and size of holes on orifice plate maximizing the ing fatty acids of triacylglycerol into methyl esters of correspond-
perimeter to flow area ratio generating cavitational effect with dif- ing fatty acids. The analysis of these long chain fatty acids
ferent intensity [19]. The intensity of cavitation can be manipu- methyl esters (FAME) was carried out using high performance li-
lated by regulating operating condition influencing its role on quid chromatography (HPLC) with UV-8010 detector set at a wave-
any chemical reaction [20]. This work describes the optimization length of 210 nm. A C18 (JT Baker) octadecyl 5 lm, length
studies especially in terms of geometrical parameters to obtain 4.6 250 mm column was used. The mixture of acetonitrile and
highest yield of biodiesel from used frying oil. acetone in the proportion of 95:5 were used as mobile phase at
the flow rate of 0.8 ml/min. Samples were prepared by using
2. Materials and methods 10 ll of the reaction mixture diluted in 10 ml of mobile phase.
Table 2
Details of orifice plates used for cavitation.
lines. The main line and the bypass line discharge the material back for every plate. Whereas, to study the effect of orifice geometry,
into the reservoir. There is a sample collection port on both the four orifice plates with different geometries were used in the pres-
lines. Main line and bypass line have throttling valves and pressure ent study at each of the selected operating pressure.
gauges to adjust the pressure upstream of the cavitating orifice. To
generate cavitation of different intensities and characteristics, 3. Results and discussion
there is a facility to incorporate different orifice plate in the main
line. The details of the different orifice plates used in the present 3.1. Effect of upstream pressure
study are given in Table 2. The temperature of the reaction mixture
is kept constant by circulating cold/hot water through the jacket Fig. 1 shows the effect of upstream pressure on the conversion
surrounding the holding tank. of triglycerides to methyl esters with respect to time. The experi-
An appropriate amount of used frying oil was taken in the res- mental results illustrate that the rate of transesterification reaction
ervoir. A known quantity of methanol with potassium hydroxide increases with an increase in upstream operating pressure of the
dissolved into it was then added into reservoir. This reaction mix- system. The results obtained with orifice plate 1 and plate 3 show
ture was allowed to circulate throw the closed loop of cavitation that the reaction time reduced significantly when the pump dis-
zone of the reactor and back to the reservoir. The pressure up- charge pressure increased from 1 bar to 3 bar. It is also observed
stream of the cavitating orifice was adjusted by using the valve that the transesterification reaction occurred even in the absence
on the bypass line. The reaction temperature was maintained at of plate and almost 40% conversion has been observed after
60 °C by adjusting flow of cooling water. The samples were col- 40 min. This indicates that the reaction also takes place as a result
lected after every 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, and of mixing in the pump and agitation due to the impeller but at a
60 min. The progress of the reaction in the collected samples was low reaction rate. An increase in upstream pressure subjected to
quenched by adding dilute sulfuric acid. The sulfuric acid was ta- the orifice increases the velocity through the orifice. As the amount
ken in an equimolar amount required to neutralize the potassium of liquid passing per unit time through the orifice increases, the
hydroxide catalyst originally present. Glycerol from reaction mix- number of passes of liquid through cavitating zone increases, due
ture was separated by gravity settling followed by centrifugation. to which liquid experiences the cavitating zone for a longer time
The excess methanol was distilled out by vacuum distillation. which results in a better conversion in lower time. Increase in
These samples were then analyzed on HPLC. In order to study the upstream pressure leads to an increase in the pressure drop
the effect of upstream operating pressure of the orifice plate, the across the orifice plate, due to which the collapse intensity of
similar procedure was followed at different operating pressures cavity increases. Thus, there is an increase in the magnitude of
pressure pulse generated due to cavitation which facilitates the the cavitational effect beyond a certain high value of flow rate.
mass transfer between the two immiscible phases (oil and alco- Fig. 2 shows the comparison of all orifice plates used in study at
holic KOH) of the reaction mixture. Similar effects have been re- different operating upstream pressures. It is seen that at lower up-
ported by Senthil Kumar et al. for iodine liberation during the stream pressure there is a considerable difference in the reaction
reaction of decomposition of aqueous KI solution [20] and Braeuti- rate for all four plates whereas at higher pressure no significant dif-
gam et al. for the decomposition of chloroform in water [21]. The ference in the reaction rates have been observed for different geo-
results obtained with orifice plate 2 and 4 show that there is an in- metric configurations of the orifice plates.
crease in the rate of transesterification reaction when upstream
pressure increased from 1 bar to 2 bar, but beyond that there is 3.2. Effect of plate geometry
no significant increase in the rate of reaction. This may be because,
there is an increase in cavitation effect when operating pressure in- 3.2.1. Effect of total perimeter of holes
creased from 1 bar to 2 bar and beyond that there is no significant The effect of total perimeter of holes on the conversion at differ-
improvement in cavitation effect with operating pressure or the ent upstream pressures has been depicted in Fig. 3. In the present
state of chocked cavitation has occurred. This may also be due to study the value of total perimeter of holes on the orifice plates is
the complete elimination of mass transfer resistance at higher varied in the range of 31.40–188.4 mm. The total perimeter of
operating pressure and the reaction kinetics becomes the overall the holes for plate 1, plate 2, plate 3 and plate 4 are 31.40, 157,
rate controlling step. At higher pressure, as the transesterification 150.72 and 188.40 mm, respectively. At lower upstream pressure
reaction proceeds and more esters are formed, the viscosity of (1 and 1.5 bar) the results obtained with plate 1, plate 2 and plate
the reaction mixture reduces rapidly. As the viscosity reduces, 4 show that with an increase in the total perimeter improvement
the volumetric flow rate generated by the pump increases which in the cavitational effect has been observed. Whereas, the results
results in a decrease in the cavitation number resulting into more obtained with plate 3 are contradictory to the reported literature
in number and higher intensity cavitational events. Up to a certain [20]. This may be due to the larger free area of plate 3 as compared
value of increasing pumping liquid flow rate there is a considerable to plate 1 and 2, larger the free area higher will be cavitation num-
decrease in cavitation number, beyond that there is only a mar- ber for the same pressure. Similarly, plate 3 has less number of hole
ginal decrease in cavitation number as observed by Vichare et al. as compared to the plate 4 of same hole size and hence more will
[19]. Therefore, there may not be a significant improvement in be the number of cavitational events. At higher pressure (2 and
326 D. Ghayal et al. / Ultrasonics Sonochemistry 20 (2013) 322–328
95 95
% Conversion
90 90
85 85
% conversion
80
80
75
75
70
70
65 plate 1 plate 2 plate 3 plate 4
0 50 100 150 200 65
Total Perimeter of Holes (mm)
60
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6
Fig. 3. Effect of total perimeter of holes on conversion.
β
85
pipe. The data in Fig. 6 obtained from the experiments shows the
relation between the dimensionless number bo and the conversion
80 plate 1
for 20 min of operation time at 1.5 bar of upstream operating pres-
plate 2 sure. The value of bo in the present study is varied from 0.25 to
75
0.45. It is observed that the conversion increases with an increas-
plate 3 ing bo i.e. the rate of reaction are higher at larger value of bo. Sim-
70
ilar results have been reported by Senthil Kumar et al. [20] and
plate 4 Braeutigam et al. [21]. Plate 1 and plate 2 have the same value of
65
bo which is expected to generate similar flow rate but the conver-
sion with plate 2 is higher. This is due to the fact that plate 1 has
60
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 single hole with 10 mm diameter where as plate 2 have 25 holes
α (mm-1) of 2 mm diameter. The frequency and intensity of turbulence can
be improved by using plates having small hole size and more in
Fig. 4. Effect of parameter a on conversion. number [20]. More the number of holes larger will be the shear
D. Ghayal et al. / Ultrasonics Sonochemistry 20 (2013) 322–328 327
85
optimized cavitational yield in the present study is 8 times higher
80 that the cavitational yield reported by Kelkar et al. for biodiesel
synthesis using hydrodynamic cavitation and 52 times more than
75 acoustic cavitation [22]. Wang et al. have reported nearly the same
cavitational yield as reported in present work for biodiesel produc-
70 tion using virgin soybean oil, but at very high upstream pressure
(>7 bar) [23]. The highest cavitational yield achieved with plate 2
65 plate 1 plate 2 plate 3 plate 4 is due to the combined effect of its small hole size, more number
of holes, and highest value of a.
60
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 3.3. Comparison of hydrodynamic cavitation with acoustic cavitation
Fig. 6. Effect on parameter bo on conversion. Higher conversion obtained in the hydrodynamic cavitation
study has been compared with the acoustic cavitaion reported ear-
lier [24]. The reported conversion for the transesterification of
layer area generating more number of cavities. Maximum turbu- waste frying oil using acoustic cavitation was 85% after 40 min of
lence intensity with larger shear area will result in improved mass the reaction time at optimized conditions which is lesser than
transfer necessary for reducing reaction time and improving the the conversion obtained using hydrodynamic cavitation reactor
cavitation yield. Plate 3 and plate 4 have same hole size i.e. i.e. more than 95% within 10 min. Higher conversion obtained in
3 mm and different number of hole. From the results it can be seen case of hydrodynamic cavitation is due to a large number of pres-
that the plate with more number of holes (plate 4) gives better cav- sure pulses of small magnitudes achieved during cavity oscillation
itation effect due to the formation of larger shear area and higher while acoustic cavitation results into a single pulse of high magni-
number of cavitational event. tude [25]. The data clearly indicates that the hydrodynamic cavita-
tion can be a better choice for the transesterification of used frying
3.2.5. Cavitational yield oil.
Cavitational yield is defined as the yield of the product per unit
energy supplied to the system. The concept of cavitational yield 3.4. Product purification
can be used to compare the performance of the cavitation reactor
with orifice plate of different geometries. Fig. 7 illustrates the rela- After the completion of the reaction, the reaction mixture con-
tion between cavitation yield and the upstream pressure for all sists of two distinct layers. Top layer contains methyl esters in a
plates used in the present study. In order to optimize the biodiesel major proportion along with some dissolved methanol, catalyst,
production using hydrodynamic cavitation reactor the optimized glycerol and small traces of water. The bottom layer consists of
geometry for orifice plate can be selected on the basis of cavitation glycerol, unreacted glycerides and methanol, soap and the catalyst.
yield. It can be seen from the results that, the cavitational yield in- As the free fatty acid content of raw UFO was less than 3%, no sig-
creases with increasing upstream operating pressure of the orifice nificant soap formation was seen during the reaction. The soap
plate. When the cavitational yield with plate 2 is compared at 1 formed may be getting dissolved in the glycerol which has about
and 3 bar of upstream pressure, almost three times improvement 40% (by weight) solubility for the soap. Thus, about 3–4% soap
in cavitating yield have been observed. Also, it is observed that can easily dissolve in 10% (by weight) glycerol. In order to get good
quality biodiesel which satisfies the fuel properties, the purifica-
tion is a necessary step. The two layers were separated by gravity
settling. Any suspended materials from the crude biodiesel were
separated by centrifugation. Water wash was then given to the
product, which assist in removing the compounds like glycerol,
KOH and soap which shows greater affinity towards water [26].
Methyl esters are insoluble in water hence can be easily separated
from water. Methanol was removed by vacuum distillation. After
Table 3
Properties of the biodiesel produced from UFO.
methanol removal step, dry washing with silica gel and anhydrous Energy required for the reaction ¼ Power supplied
sodium sulfate was used to remove the traces of water present in time of treatment
biodiesel [24].
Various properties have been determined of the purified biodie- ¼ 7:5 103 10 60
sel and reported in Table 3. It has been found that the properties ¼ 45 105 J
are matching with ASTM/IS standards for biodiesel.
5781ðgmÞ
4. Conclusions Cavitational yield ¼ ¼ 1:28 103 gm=J
45 105 ðJÞ
The present work reports the use of UFO for biodiesel produc-
tion using hydrodynamic cavitation technique. The hydrodynamic References
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Amount of Methyl esters formed: 5781 gm (1999) 53–65.
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amount of product producedðgmÞ
cavitational yield ¼
energy required for reaction ðJÞ