Anhydrous bio-ethanol produced from Elaeis Guineensis palm wine for use as a biodiesel feedstock

Abstract

Biofuel is an important alternative to the limited resources of fossil fuels for use in power generation. Currently, regular alcohol is used as a feedstock; however, it is known to be toxic. Hence, in this paper, we demonstrate that anhydrous alcohol obtained from palm wine is a potential alternative as the main feedstock for biofuel production. In this study, the aim was to improve the anhydrous alcohol obtained from palm wine based on storage conditions. Although this type of anhydrous alcohol has been previously produced, it is demonstrated that the current method is more efficient than the previous one. The processes implemented in this study were fractionation and extractive distillation. Two numerical simulations were carried out using extractive distillation processes to evaluate of an ethanol and water mixture, that is, ethylene glycol or glyceride. The palm wine was characterized based on the determination of the alcohol content, pH, acidity and the content of free SO2. The alcohol produced was characterized through the determination of its concentration, viscosity and density and infrared spectroscopy analysis. The results illustrate that it is possible to obtain excellent quality anhydrous alcohol suitable for small biofuel production, which is increasingly in demand in rural villages in Sub-Saharan Africa.