Edible oil mill effluent; a low-cost source for economizing biodiesel production: Electrospun nanofibrous coalescing filtration approach

Mohammad Javad A Shirazi,Mohammad Mahdi A Shirazi,Saeed Bazgir

doi:10.18331/brj2015.1.1.9

Abstract

Article history: Biofuels have increased in popularity because of rising oil prices and the need for energy security. However, finding new raw sources for biodiesel production is still challenging. The oil which comes from wastewater effluent generated in edible oil mills (EOM) can be considered a low-cost, widely available, emerging and interesting source for biodiesel production. This study tries to improve the coalescing filtration by using electrospun nanofibrous filters for oil recovery from the EOM effluent. In order to improve the separation efficiency of the filters, thermal treatments (90oC to 150oC) were used. Results indicate that oil recovery using coalescing filtration is a promising method for providing a new source for making biodiesel production more economical.

Highlights

A biofuel is a fuel that is produced from living organism, or made through biomass conversion (Mohammadi et al, 2011; Long et al, 2013)
As it can be observed, there was no significant change in the morphology of the electrospun filters when they were heated from 90 to 120oC; after a 130oC thermal treatment, the fibers started to merge together
The morphology change can be observed after 140oC heating

Summary

Introduction

A biofuel is a fuel that is produced from living organism, or made through biomass conversion (Mohammadi et al, 2011; Long et al, 2013). Biomass refers to recently living organisms, most often plants or plant-derived materials or even algae (Chisti and Yan, 2011; Bridgwater, 2012). Biofuels have increased in popularity because of rising oil prices and the need for energy security (Shirazi et al, 2013a). During the last couple of decades, biodiesel, which is an alternative to petro-based diesel, has attracted an increasing deal of attention. This has been due to its remarkable emission characteristics which means less carbon

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Results

Conclusion