Removal of glycerol from biodiesel using multi-stage microfiltration membrane system: industrial scale process simulation
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Samuel P. Kusumocahyo
,
Rachel C. Redulla
Abstract
Biodiesel purification is one of the most important downstream processes in biodiesel industries. The removal of glycerol from crude biodiesel is commonly conducted by an extraction method using water, however this method results in a vast amount of wastewater and needs a lot of energy. In this study, microfiltration membrane was used to remove glycerol from biodiesel, and a process simulation was carried out for an industrial scale biodiesel purification plant using a microfiltration membrane system. The microfiltration experiment using a simulated feed solution of biodiesel containing glycerol and water showed that the membrane process produced purified biodiesel that met the international standards. The result of the process simulation of a multi-stage membrane system showed that the membrane area could be minimized by optimizing the concentration factor of every stage with the aid of a computer program that was written in Phyton programming language with Visual Studio Code. The overall productivity of a single stage membrane system was the same with that of the multi-stage system, however the single stage system required a larger membrane area. To produce 750 m3 day−1 of purified biodiesel, a multi-stage membrane system consisting of 10 membrane modules required a total membrane area of 1515 m2 that was 57% smaller compared to the single stage system consisting of one membrane module. This membrane area reduction was equivalent to a reduction of the total capital cost of 30%. Based on the analysis of the total capital cost, it was found that the optimum number of stages was 4 since it showed a minimum value of the total capital cost with a membrane area of 1620 m2 that was equivalent to the reduction of the total capital cost of 34%. The result of this simulation showed that the multi-stage microfiltration membrane has great potential to replace the conventional method in biodiesel industries.
Funding source: Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia
Award Identifier / Grant number: 235 /SP2H/LT/DRPM/2021
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Author contributions: All the authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this submitted manuscript and approved submission.
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Research funding: The authors would like to thank the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia for the financial support through the PDUPT research grant program 2021.
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Conflict of interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding this article.
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© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Two-stage adsorber optimization of NaOH-prewashed oil palm empty fruit bunch activated carbon for methylene blue removal
- Response surface methodology (RSM) and artificial neural network (ANN) approach to optimize the photocatalytic conversion of rice straw hydrolysis residue (RSHR) into vanillin and 4-hydroxybenzaldehyde
- Computational investigation of erosion wear in the eco-friendly disposal of the fly ash through 90° horizontal bend of different radius ratios
- Optimal sequencing of conventional distillation column train for multicomponent separation system by evolutionary algorithm
- Enhanced design of PID controller and noise filter for second order stable and unstable processes with time delay
- Removal of glycerol from biodiesel using multi-stage microfiltration membrane system: industrial scale process simulation
- Multi-objective optimization of a fluid catalytic cracking unit using response surface methodology
- Effect of pipe rotation on heat transfer to laminar non-Newtonian nanofluid flowing through a pipe: a CFD analysis
- Statistical modeling and optimization of the bleachability of regenerated spent bleaching earth using response surface methodology and artificial neural networks with genetic algorithm
- Short Communication
- A comparative study: conventional and modified serpentine micromixers
