INVESTIGADORES
PEREDA Selva
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Catalyst-Free Production and Purification of Monoglycerides and Fatty Esters
Autor/es:
G. SOTO; G. MABE; P. HEGEL; S. PEREDA; E. A.BRIGNOLE
Lugar:
Puerto Varas
Reunión:
Conferencia; IX Iberoamerican Conference on Phase Equilibria and Fluid Properties for Process Design (EQUIFASE 2012); 2012
Resumen:
The production of biodiesel or fatty esters from lipids with supercritical methanol (scMeOH) has gained interest in the last decade because it allows the transesterification of crude oils and fats. The reaction should be carried out above 310ºC in order to achieve complete conversion. When milder conditions are set, also monoglycerides (MG) and diglycerides (DG), together with the glycerol, are obtained as byproducts of the transesterification process. Acylglycerols constitute common food emulsifiers and surface active agents in many industrial cleaning products. The main goal of this work was to study the fractionation of FE and acylglycerols by using CO2 as a green solvent. Mixtures of FE, MG and DG were produced by a partial transesterification of high oleic sunflower oil with scMeOH in a temperature range of 556 K to 605 K and using different initial methanol to oil molar ratios of (20/1 to 40/1 methanol/oil). Then, experimental data on phase equilibria of reaction products + CO2 were measured at 298 K and 313 K in a windowed variable volume cell. This data were used to evaluate the performance of the Group Contribution with Association Equation of State (GCA-EOS) to model the ternary system in order to design a feasible separation process. According to the process simulation four countercurrent theoretical stages are needed to obtain acylglycerols with a concentration higher than 98 wt.% in the raffinate phase while the concentration of FE is above 97 wt.% in the extract phase