Enzymatic Biodiesel Synthesis Using Novel Process Intensification Principles

This book is among the first to address the novel process intensification technologies for biodiesel production, in particular the integrated reactive separations. It provides a comprehensive overview illustrated with many industrially relevant examples of novel reactive separation processes used in the production of biodiesel (e.g. fatty acid alkyl esters): reactive distillation, reactive absorption, reactive extraction, membrane reactors, and centrifugal contact separators. Readers will also learn about the working principles, design and control of integrated processes, while also getting a relevant and modern overview of the process intensification opportunities for biodiesel synthesis. Biodiesel is a biodegradable and renewable fuel that currently enjoys much attention. In spite of the recent advances, the existing biodiesel processes still suffer from problems associated with the use of homogeneous catalysts (e.g. salt waste streams) and the key limitations imposed by the chemical reaction equilibrium, thus leading to severe economic and environmental penalties. The integration of reaction and separation into one operating unit overcomes equilibrium limitations and provides key benefits such as low capital investment and operating costs. Many of these processes can be further enhanced by heat-integration and powered by heterogeneous catalysts, to eliminate all conventional catalyst related operations, using the raw materials efficiently and the reaction volume, while offering high conversion and selectivity, and significant energy savings. The targeted audience of this book includes both academia (students and researchers) and industry (project leaders, technology managers, researchers, biodiesel producers, and equipment suppliers).

The successful implementation of greener chemical processes relies not only on the development of more efficient catalysts for synthetic chemistry but also, and as importantly, on the development of reactor and separation technologies which can deliver enhanced processing performance in a safe, cost-effective and energy efficient manner. Process intensification has emerged as a promising field which can effectively tackle the challenges of significant process enhancement, whilst also offering the potential to diminish the environmental impact presented by the chemical industry. Following an introduction to process intensification and the principles of green chemistry, this book presents a number of intensified technologies which have been researched and developed, including case studies to illustrate their application to green chemical processes. Topics covered include: • Intensified reactor technologies: spinning disc reactors, microreactors, monolith reactors, oscillatory flow reactors, cavitational reactors • Combined reactor/separator systems: membrane reactors, reactive distillation, reactive extraction, reactive absorption • Membrane separations for green chemistry • Industry relevance of process intensification, including economics and environmental impact, opportunities for energy saving, and practical considerations for industrial implementation. Process Intensification for Green Chemistry is a valuable resource for practising engineers and chemists alike who are interested in applying intensified reactor and/or separator systems in a range of industries to achieve green chemistry principles.

Diesel Engines and Biodiesel Engines Technologies explores the conceptual and methodological approaches for the understanding of both diesel engines and biodiesel technologies. The book incorporates reviews of the most significant research findings in both diesel and biodiesel engine production and utilization. It presents technological interventions in biodiesel production and offers a foresight analysis of the perspectives of biodiesel as a future global commodity. It also examines the main challenges that biodiesel will have to overcome in order to play a key role in future energy systems. Furthermore, the book discusses alternative diesel fuels from oils and fats and proposes solutions to issues associated with biodiesel feedstocks, production issues, quality control, viscosity, stability, applications, emissions, and other environmental impacts.

Current world fossil oil production is struggling to meet demand and may even show a decline after 2010. It is therefore necessary to develop new energy-efficient production pathways for transportation biofuels. This book offers an insight into three promising and innovative pathways for the biological production of ethanol, biogas and biodiesel. These unconventional methods should provide higher product yields, less stringent feedstock specifications, lower chemical additive demand, reduced waste production and much better energy balances when compared to more traditional methods. One pathway concerns the enzymatic production of a new kind of biodiesel where no glycerol waste is produced and an up to twenty percent higher product yield is obtained. The other two pathways are based on the biological conversion of syngas into ethanol or methane using various kinds of lignocellulosic biomass as the starting point. For each of the three pathways a comparison will be made with competing production methods. The contents reflect extended desktop research and show practical experimental results. Government scientists, academics and biofuel producers with an interest in novel transportation fuels will all find this book to be essential reading.

This book explores a novel technique for processing biodiesel using lipase immobilization by encapsulation and its physical properties, stability characteristics, and application in stirred tank and re-circulated packed bed immobilized reactors for biodiesel production. The enzymatic processing of biodiesel addresses many of the problems associated with chemical processing. It requires only moderate operating conditions and yields a high-quality product with a high level of conversion and the life cycle assessment of enzymatic biodiesel production has more favourable environmental consequences. The chemical processing problems of waste water treatment are lessened and soap formation is not an issue, meaning that waste oil with higher FFA can be used as the feedstock. The by product glycerol does not require any purification and it can be sold at higher price. However, soluble enzymatic processing is not perfect. It is costly, the enzyme cannot be recycled and its removal from the product is difficult. For these reasons, immobilized enzymatic process has been developed which retains the advantages of the soluble enzymatic process and reuse of the enzyme is possible which decreases the enzyme cost, the biodiesel produced does not contain any enzyme residue and the activity of the enzyme can be increased by immobilization. The drawbacks of the immobilized enzyme process are mass transfer limitation, enzyme leakage, the lack of a versatile commercial immobilized enzyme and some of immobilization methods involve toxic chemicals. To overcome the drawbacks of the immobilized enzyme, an attempt is made to use a degradable biopolymer (κ-carrageenan) as a carrier for lipase immobilization.

In recent years bioprocessing has increased in popularity and importance, however, bioprocessing still poses various important techno-economic and environmental challenges, such as product yields, excessive energy consumption for separations in highly watery systems, batch operation or the downstream processing bottlenecks in the production of biopharmaceutical products. Many of those challenges can be addressed by application of different process intensification technologies discussed in the present book. The first book dedicated entirely to this area, Intensification of Biobased Processes provides a comprehensive overview of modern process intensification technologies used in bioprocessing. The book focusses on four different categories of biobased products: bio-fuels and platform chemicals; cosmeceuticals; food products; and polymers and advanced materials. It will cover various intensification aspects of the processes concerned, including (bio)reactor intensification; intensification of separation, recovery and formulation operations; and process integration. This is an invaluable source of information for researchers and industrialists working in chemical engineering, biotechnology and process engineering.