C.B. Batistella

Optimization of biodiesel production from castor oil.

The transesterification of castor oil with ethanol in the presence of sodium ethoxide as catalyst is an exceptional option for the Brazilian biodiesel production, because the castor nut is quite available in the country. Chemically, its oil contains about 90% of ricinoleic acid that gives to the oil some beneficial characteristics such as its alcohol solubility at 30°C. The transesterification variables studied in this work were reaction temperature, catalyst concentration and alcohol oil molar ratio. Through a star configuration experimental design with central points, this study shows that it is possible to achieve the same conversion of esters carrying out the transesterification reaction with a smaller alcohol quantity, and a new methodology was developed to obtain high purity biodiesel.

Recovery of carotenoids from palm oil by molecular distillation

The carotenoids from palm oil were recovered through a process involving neutralization and transesterification of palm oil followed by molecular distillation of the ester. The distillate obtained contains more than 30000 ppm of carotenoids. The experimental data were obtained from falling film and centrifugal molecular distillators. It can be seen that each one has its own characteristic, observed in function of the operating temperatures and material thermal decomposition tendencies. The experimental results were compared to the ones from simulations using the mathematical modeling for the falling film and centrifugal distillators developed.

Molecular Distillation Process for Recovering Biodiesel and Carotenoids from Palm Oil

Carotenoids and biodiesel from palm oil were recovered through a process involving neutralization and transesterification of palm oil followed by molecular distillation of the esters. The concentrated obtained contains more than 30,000 ppm of carotenoids and the distillate contains above 95% of light-colored biodiesel. The experimental data were obtained from falling film and centrifugal molecular distillators. It can be seen that each one has its own characteristics, which are a function of the operating temperatures and of the tendency of the material thermal decomposition. These characteristics can determine the type of equipment to be used, since they have different operating conditions. The experimental results were compared to the ones from simulations using the mathematical modeling for the falling film and centrifugal distillators developed.

Evaluation of Tocopherol Recovery Through Simulation of Molecular Distillation Process

DISMOL simulator was used to determine the best possible operating conditions to guide, in future studies, experimental works. This simulator needs several physical-chemical properties and often it is very difficult to determine them because of the complexity of the involved components. Their determinations must be made through correlations and/or predictions, in order to characterize the system and calculate it. The first try is to have simulation results of a system that later can be validated with experimental data. To implement, in the simulator, the necessary parameters of complex systems is a difficult task. In this work, we aimed to determe these properties in order to evaluate the tocopherol (vitamin E) recovery using a DISMOL simulator. The raw material used was the crude deodorizer distillate of soya oil. With this procedure, it is possible to determine the best operating conditions for experimental works and to evaluate the process in the separation of new systems, analyzing the profiles obtained from these simulations for the falling film molecular distillator.

Evaluation of Atmospheric and Vacuum Residues Using Molecular Distillation and Optimization

Abstract The term atmospheric residue describes the material at the bottom of the atmospheric distillation tower having a lower boiling point limit of about 340°C; the term vacuum residue (heavy petroleum fractions) refers to the bottom of the vacuum distillation, which has an atmospheric equivalent boiling point (AEBP) above 540°C. In this work, the objective is to evaluate the behavior of different kinds of Brazilian atmospheric and vacuum residues using molecular distillation. The Falling Film Molecular Distillator was used. For the results obtained through this process, a significant range of temperature can be explored avoiding the thermal decomposition of the material. So these results are very important to the refinery decisions and improvements. The Experimental Factorial Design results showed that the temperature has more influence on the process than the feed flow rate, when a higher percentage of distillate is required.

True Boiling Point Extended Curve of Vacuum Residue Through Molecular Distillation

Abstract Molecular distillation is a separation process that explores high vacuum, operation at reduced temperatures, and low exposition of the material at the operating temperature. The term vacuum residue (heavy petroleum fractions) refers to the bottom of the vacuum distillation, which has an atmospheric equivalent temperature (AET) above 540°C. For the assay of the properties of petroleum and petroleum products, the use of the true boiling point (TBP) distillation analysis is accepted as a common practice; however, for heavy petroleum fractions, some difficulties appear for determination of TBP of these petroleum fractions. The objective of this work is to develop a new and a more appropriated method to extend the TBP curve to use it for characterizing vacuum residue of heavy petroleum. The falling film molecular distillator was used. The results showed that it is possible to extend the TBP curve through molecular distillation process with very good precision.

Use of experimental design to investigate biodiesel production by multiple-stage Ultra-Shear reactor

This work presents biodiesel production from soybean oil and bioethanol by multiple-stage Ultra-Shear reactor (USR). The experiments were carried out in the following conditions: reaction time from 6 to 12 min; catalyst concentration from 0.5% to 1.5% by weight of soybean oil; ethanol: soybean oil molar ratio from 6:1 to 10:1. The experimental design was used to investigate the influence of process variables on the conversion in biodiesel. The best ethyl ester conversion obtained was 99.26 wt.%, with ethanol:soybean oil molar ratio of 6:1, catalyst concentration of 1.35% and with 12 min of reaction time.

Optimization of Distilled Monoglycerides Production

Monoglycerides (MG) are emulsifiers widely used in food and pharmaceutical industries. Current industrial processes for MG production consist of the interesterification of triglycerides with glycerol (GL), in the presence of inorganic catalysts at high temperatures (>200°C). This reaction is known as glycerolysis and produces a mixture of approx 50% of MG. This level of concentration is suitable for many applications, although, for some specific uses like margarine, shortening, icing, and cream filling, require distilled MGs, which are purified MG (min. 90%) obtained by the molecular distillation process. Therefore, in this work, a 23 factorial design was employed to evaluate the effects of reaction parameters in the MG content after the interesterification reaction of refined soybean oil with GL in the presence of sodium hydroxide as catalyst. After that, the MG content in the reaction product was enhanced through the molecular distillation process in order to obtain distilled MG.

Biodiesel production from vegetable oils: Operational strategies for large scale systems

Abstract This work presents the transesterification process of vegetable oils with bioethanol in the presence of sodium hydroxide as catalyst, because it leads to better conversion and smaller reaction time. A computer-aided tool of this system to model the kinetic of biodiesel production was developed to explore the impact of each strategy on the process behaviour which is an important issue to lead the process to be operated at high level of performance. An analysis was made of the temperature effects on the reaction rates, and it was determined the reaction rate constants and the activation energies derived from experimental observation. The kinetic data showed to be satisfactory for a wide range of operating conditions. The assessment of possible implementation difficulties are carefully considered and discussed.

Natural compounds obtained through centrifugal molecular distillation.

Soybean oil deodorized distillate (SODD) is a byproduct from refining edible soybean oil; however, the deodorization process removes unsaponifiable materials, such as sterols and tocopherols. Tocopherols are highly added value materials. Molecular distillation has large potential to be used in order to concentrate tocopherols, because it uses very low levels of temperatures because of the high vacuum and short operating time for separation and, also, it does not use solvents. However, nowadays, the conventional way to recover tocopherols is carrying out chemical reactions prior to molecular distillation, making the process not so suitable to deal with natural products. The purpose of this work is to use only molecular distillation in order to recover tocopherols from SODD. Experiments were performed in the range of 140-220 degrees C. The feed flow rate varied from 5 to 15 g/min. The objective of this study was to remove the maximum amount of free fatty acids (FFA) and, so, to increase the tocopherol concentration without add any extra component to the system. The percentage of FFA in the distillate stream of the molecular still is larger at low feed flow rates and low evaporator temperatures, avoiding thermal decomposition effects.Soybean oil deodorized distillate (SODD) is a byproduct from refining edible soybean oil; however, the deodorization process removes unsaponifiable materials, such as sterols and tocopherols. Tocopherols are highly added value materials. Molecular distillation has large potential to be used in order to concentrate tocopherols, because it uses very low levels of temperatures because of the high vacuum and short operating time for separation and, also, it does not use solvents. However, nowadays, the conventional way to recover tocopherols is carrying out chemical reactions prior to molecular distillation, making the process not so suitable to deal with natural products. The purpose of this work is to use only molecular distillation in order to recover tocopherols from SODD. Experiments were performed in the range of 140–220°C. The feed flow rate varied from 5 to 15 g/min. The objective of this study was to remove the maximum amount of free fatty acids (FFA) and, so, to increase the tocopherol concentration without add any extra component to the system. The percentage of FFA in the distillate stream of the molecular still is large at low feed flow rates and low evaporator temperatures, avoiding thermal decomposition effects.