Sulaiman Al-Zuhair

Assessment of electrocoagulation for the treatment of petroleum refinery wastewater.

Batch electrocoagulation experiments were carried out to evaluate the removal of sulfate and COD from petroleum refinery wastewater using three types of electrodes: aluminum, stainless steel, and iron. The effects of current density, electrode arrangement, electrolysis time, initial pH, and temperature were investigated for two wastewater samples with different concentrations of COD and sulfate. The experimental results indicated that the utilization of aluminum, as anode and cathode, was by far the most efficient arrangement in the reduction of both the contaminants. The treatment process was found to be largely affected by the current density and the initial composition of the wastewater. Although electrocoagulation was found to be most effective at 25 degrees C and a pH of 8, the influence of these two parameters on the removal rate was not significant. The results demonstrated the technical feasibility of electrocoagulation as a possible and reliable technique for the pretreatment of heavily contaminated petroleum refinery wastewater.

Reduction of COD in refinery wastewater through adsorption on date-pit activated carbon.

Experiments were carried out to evaluate the batch adsorption of COD from petroleum refinery wastewater on a locally prepared date-pit activated carbon (DP-AC), and its adsorption effectiveness was compared to that of commercially available BDH activated carbon (BDH-AC). Adsorption equilibrium and kinetic data were determined for both adsorbents and fitted to several adsorption isotherm and kinetics models, respectively. The Langmuir monolayer isotherm fitted well the equilibrium data of COD on both adsorbents; whereas, the kinetics data were best fitted by the pseudo-second order model. Modeling of the controlling mechanisms indicated that both intrinsic kinetics and mass transfer contributed to controlling the adsorption process. Mass transfer seemed to be the dominant mechanism at low COD content, while intrinsic kinetics dominates at high concentrations. In general, the adsorption effectiveness of locally prepared DP-AC was proven to be comparable to that of BDH-AC. Therefore, DP-AC can be utilized as an effective and less expensive adsorbent for the reduction of COD in refinery wastewater.

Kinetics of the enzymatic hydrolysis of palm oil by lipase

Abstract The kinetics of the enzymic hydrolysis of palm oil using lipase in a batch reactor has been investigated. The lipase enzyme used was not ester bond position selective and its activity at the interface was higher compared to that in the bulk. A mathematical model taking into account the mechanism of the hydrolysis reaction and the effect of interfacial area between the oil phase and the aqueous phase containing the enzyme was developed. A correlation between the interfacial area and the operating conditions including agitation speed and oil volume fraction was established experimentally. The kinetic parameters were estimated by fitting the data to the model and comparing with previously reported values. The kinetic model represented the experimental data accurately.

Production of Biodiesel by Lipase‐Catalyzed Transesterification of Vegetable Oils: A Kinetics Study

Kinetics of production of biodiesel by enzymatic methanolysis of vegetable oils using lipase has been investigated. A mathematical model taking into account the mechanism of the methanolysis reaction starting from the vegetable oil as substrate, rather than the free fatty acids, has been developed. The kinetic parameters were estimated by fitting the experimental data of the enzymatic reaction of sunflower oil by two types of lipases, namely, Rhizomucor miehei lipase (RM) immobilized on ion‐exchange resins and Thermomyces lanuginosa lipase (TL) immobilized on silica gel. There was a good agreement between the experimental results of the initial rate of reaction and those predicted by the proposed model equations, for both enzymes. From the proposed model equations, the regions where the effect of alcohol inhibition fades, at different substrate concentrations, were identified. The proposed model equation can be used to predict the rate of methanolysis of vegetable oils in a batch or a continuous reactor and to determine the optimal conditions for biodiesel production.

A Review of Enzymatic Transesterification of Microalgal Oil-Based Biodiesel Using Supercritical Technology

Biodiesel is considered a promising replacement to petroleum-derived diesel. Using oils extracted from agricultural crops competes with their use as food and cannot realistically satisfy the global demand of diesel-fuel requirements. On the other hand, microalgae, which have a much higher oil yield per hectare, compared to oil crops, appear to be a source that has the potential to completely replace fossil diesel. Microalgae oil extraction is a major step in the overall biodiesel production process. Recently, supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO2) has been proposed to replace conventional solvent extraction techniques because it is nontoxic, nonhazardous, chemically stable, and inexpensive. It uses environmentally acceptable solvent, which can easily be separated from the products. In addition, the use of SC-CO2 as a reaction media has also been proposed to eliminate the inhibition limitations that encounter biodiesel production reaction using immobilized enzyme as a catalyst. Furthermore, using SC-CO2 allows easy separation of the product. In this paper, conventional biodiesel production with first generation feedstock, using chemical catalysts and solvent-extraction, is compared to new technologies with an emphasis on using microalgae, immobilized lipase, and SC-CO2 as an extraction solvent and reaction media.

Enzymatic Production of Bio-Diesel from Waste Cooking Oil Using Lipase

The applications of lipase immobilized on ceramic beads and entrapped in sol-gel matrix, in the production of bio-diesel from waste cooking oil, are compared to that of free lipase. Experimental determination of the effect of molar equivalent of methanol, to moles of ester bond in the triglyceride, on the rate of the enzymatic trans-esterification was ex- perimentally determined. It was found that for the same weight of lipase used, the production of bio-diesel was much higher using lipase immobilized on ceramic beads in comparison to that using lipase entrapped in sol-gel and in free form. Substrates inhibition effect was observed in all cases, which agrees with previous results found in literature. The optimum methanol:oil molar ratio was found to be 0.87 for immobilized lipase from yeast source, C. antartica and 1.00 for free li- pase from the same yeast source and immobilized lipase from bacterial source, P. cepacia. On the other hand, it was shown that biodieasel can be produced in considerable amounts, with yield reaching 40%, in absence of organic solvent using immobilized lipase, from P. cepacia, on ceramic beads. The results of this study can be used to determine the kinet- ics parameters of mathematical models which describe the system.

RF Microalgal lipid content characterization

Most conventional techniques for the determination of microalgae lipid content are time consuming and in most cases are indirect and require excessive sample preparations. This work presents a new technique that utilizes radio frequency (RF) for rapid lipid quantification, without the need for sample preparation. Tests showed that a shift in the resonance frequency of a RF open-ended coaxial resonator and a gradual increase in its resonance magnitude may occur as the lipids content of microalgae cells increases. These response parameters can be then calibrated against actual cellular lipid contents and used for rapid determination of the cellular lipids. The average duration of lipid quantification using the proposed technique was of about 1 minute, which is significantly less than all other conventional techniques, and was achieved without the need for any time consuming treatment steps.

Enzymatic pre-treatment of microalgae cells for enhanced extraction of proteins

Crude proteins and pigments were extracted from different microalgae strains, both marine and freshwater. The effectiveness of enzymatic pre‐treatment prior to protein extraction was evaluated and compared to conventional techniques, including ultrasonication and high‐pressure water extraction. Enzymatic pre‐treatment was chosen as it could be carried out at mild shear conditions and does not subject the proteins to high temperatures, as with the ultrasonication approach. Using enzymatic pre‐treatment, the extracted proteins yields of all tested microalgae strains were approximately 0.7 mg per mg of dry cell weight. These values were comparable to those achieved using a commercial lytic kit. Ultrasonication was not very effective for proteins extraction from Chlorella sp., and the extracted proteins yields did not exceed 0.4 mg per mg of dry cell weight. For other strains, similar yields were achieved by both treatment methods. The time‐course effect of enzymatic incubation on the proteins extraction efficiency was more evident using laccase compared to lysozyme, which suggested that the former enzyme has a slower rate of cell disruption. The crude extracted proteins were fractionated using an ion exchange resin and were analyzed by the electrophoresis technique. They were further tested for their antioxidant activity, the highest of which was about 60% from Nannochloropsis sp. The total phenolic contents in the selected strains were also determined, with Chlorella sp. showing the highest content reaching 17 mg/g. Lysozyme was also found to enhance the extraction of pigments, with Chlorella sp. showing the highest pigments contents of 16.02, 4.59 and 5.22 mg/g of chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b and total carotenoids, respectively.

Kinetics of Aspergillus niger Cellulase Inhibition by Reducing Sugar Produced by the Hydrolysis of Carboxymethylcellulose

Hydrolysis of two types of cellulose, namely, totally amorphous Carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) and highly crystalline wood shavings, by Aspergillus niger cellulase was studied in a stirred batch reactor at 50oC. Two kinetic models were devised to predict the rate of reducing sugar production assuming competitive and non-competitive product inhibition of the enzyme. The applicability of the models was tested by comparing experimental results with those predicted by the models. Both models followed the experimental data fairly well, giving standard deviation of 13.3 and 7.9 for the competitive and the non-competitive inhibition models, respectively. However the non-competitive inhibition model showed more realistic behaviour than the non-competitive model and represented better the experimental data. The significance of crystallinity was determined by comparing the production of reducing sugar from wood shavings to the production from CMC. At same initial substrate concentration, it was found that the production of reducing sugar ceased at much shorter times for wood shavings in comparison to that for CMC.

Using liquid–liquid deep settling model in determining the design parameters of crude palm oil settler

A liquid‐liquid separation model (LLSM) has been utilised to describe the clear palm oil separation from the crude palm oil mixture, which is a process that involves disengagement of oil droplets from an oil‐water emulsion. The LLSM is used to determine the design parameters of industrial scale settlers and the results compared with that of the conventional solid‐liquid settling model (SLSM) using three different industrial scale settlers as the basis of comparison. The LLSM predictions were much more accurate than the SLSM. This justifies the use of the LLSM instead of the conventional SLSM in determining the optimal design parameters and the optimal operating conditions of industrial settlers.