INCAPE   05401
INSTITUTO DE INVESTIGACIONES EN CATALISIS Y PETROQUIMICA "ING. JOSE MIGUEL PARERA"
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
capítulos de libros
Título:
Adsorption in Biodiesel Refining - A Review
Autor/es:
CARLOS R. VERA; MARIANA BUSTO; JUAN C. YORI; GERARDO TORRES; DEBORA MANUALE; SERGIO CANAVESE; JORGE SEPULVEDA
Libro:
Biodiesel - Feedstocks and Processing Technologies
Editorial:
InTech
Referencias:
Lugar: Rijeka; Año: 2011; p. 427 - 458
Resumen:
Biodiesel is a petrodiesel substitute composed of a mixture of fatty acid methyl esters obtained by the transesterification of plant oils or animal fats with short chain alcohols such as methanol or ethanol. Despite its natural origin biodiesel is technically fully compatible with petroleum diesel, requiring virtually no changes in the fuel distribution system or theDiesel motor. Its production and use have increased significantly in many countries and are in nascent status in many others. Other advantages of biodiesel compared to petrodiesel are reduction of most exhaust emissions, biodegradability, higher flash point, inherent lubricityand domestic origin (Chang et al., 1996; Romig & Spataru, 1996; Wang et al., 2000).Literature on the refining of biodiesel is abundant but concentrates almost exclusively on the transesterification steps for transforming fats and oils into esters of short alcohols and fatty acids. In this sense in the last years the most important advances in the reaction technologyhave been the development of continuous heterogeneous transesterification reactors (Bournay et al., 2005; Portilho et al., 2008) and the design of new robust non-catalytic processes for multifeedstock operation (Saka & Kusdiana, 2001; Saka & Minami, 2009).In the case of the refining operations downstream and upstream the transesterification reactors the biodiesel literature is however scarce. Two are the reasons for this: (i) Feedstock pretreatment in the case of biodiesel is a mature technology developed decades ago for theproduction of edible oil. (ii) After natural triglycerides are converted into fatty acid methyl esters, the product mixture needs little chemical adjustment since many properties of these esters are ideal for the functioning of Diesel motors.Some reports on post-reactor biodiesel refining have dealt with classical and simple techniques of purification, e.g. water washing (Karaosmanoglu et al., 1996). Others have indicated that adsorption technologies are particularly suited for the refining of biodiesel(Yori et al. 2007; Mazzieri et al., 2008; Manuale et al. 2011). In order to elucidate the role of adsorption processes in the refining of biodiesel, this review studies some theoretical and practical aspects related to the functioning, design and operation of adsorbers and theirapplication to the purification of biodiesel product and feedstocks.