Grants and Contracts Details
Description
The principle objective of this student design project is to design a
process to generate value added specialty chemical products from the waste crude glycerol
generated for the production of biodiesel. The student group will apply the principles of
process intensification with the tools of systems engineering and mechanical equipment design
in achieving their project goal. Finally, the students will build a lab scale prototype of their
process based on their designs. Design projects that are aligned with renewable motor fuels
like biodiesel can provide benefits to people, prosperity and the planet since they are produced
from sustainable feedstocks like vegetable oils or animal fats. Due to recent tax incentives,
production of biodiesel in the United States and Europe has increased substantially. In fact,
recently published estimates predict that the demand for biodiesel will grow from 6 to 9 million
metric tons per year in the United States and from 5 to 14 million metric tons per year in the
European Union in the next few years. However, for every 9 kg of biodiesel produced, 1 kg of
crude glycerol is produced as a byproduct. Developing economically viable processes for using
this crude glycerol can potentially improve not only the economic performance of biodiesel
production operations, but also increase the overall carbon utilization of biodiesel production.
Numerous chemical products currently produced from crude oil derived propylene can
also be produced from bio]based glycerol. Products based on C3 chemistry such as acrylic acid,
acrolein, 1,2]propanediol, 1,3]propanediol, propionaldehyde and hydroxyacetone can be
manufactured from glycerol. However, for small scale producers, building processes to convert
glycerol into more profitable chemicals is not practical. Therefore, the goal of this design
project will be to apply the principles of process intensification to design a self contained unit
with a design capacity appropriate for a small scale producer. This research will be
multidisciplinary in nature, integrating process systems engineering with process intensification
and mechanical equipment design and configuration. Laboratory experimentation will be
combined with process synthesis, equipment design and environmental impact assessment to
develop an optimized conceptual processes for a low]cost, small scale, self contained
production unit to convert the waste crude glycerol from a biorefinery to economically viable
specialty chemical products.
Status | Finished |
---|---|
Effective start/end date | 8/15/10 → 8/14/11 |
Funding
- Environmental Protection Agency: $10,000.00
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