Abstract
Glycerol is a by-product of biodiesel obtained from biomass, accounting for 10% of the biodiesel production. In the context of a green economy, aiming for a reduction of the emission of atmospheric greenhouse gases emissions, the demand of biodiesel is expected to increase vastly, in parallel with a side glut supply of glycerol. Given the high cost of biodiesel compared with its fossil congener, upgrading of glycerol into added-value products can represent a secondary income source and turn the production of such alternative fuels economically sustainable in the long term. The glycerol obtained as by-product of biodiesel from biomass is in a crude form and must be purified. Some industrial solutions and applications were therein geared. The survey presented in this work, based on a reviewing of the existing literature, examines three routes for the valuing glycerol into energy carriers and chemicals, namely, carbonation, acylation, and steam reforming to hydrogen. The latter is embodied of great interest and importance, insofar that hydrogen by itself is considered as straighforward clean fuel for transportation uses, due to its high calorific power and to recent advances in fuel cells. We also have focused on the chain value from biomass to energies carriers through these pathways.
Highlights
About 80% of global energy production derives from carbonaceous fuels, which include petroleum, coal, and biomasses
The latter is embodied of great interest and importance, insofar that hydrogen by itself is considered as straighforward clean fuel for transportation uses, due to its high calorific power and to recent advances in fuel cells
This study focused on the separation of the ternary mixture for the direct distillation classic sequence and the Dividing wall column technology (DWC) technology, with a base feed of 2.9 kgh−1 equivalent to 100 ktpy, considering as objective the attainment of 99.5 wt %
Summary
About 80% of global energy production derives from carbonaceous fuels, which include petroleum, coal, and biomasses. The transesterification reaction for biodiesel production, consists therein in replacing the glycerol molecule by an alcohol with fewer carbon atoms, for example with one methanol molecule, forming a monoglyceride, or with ethanol forming a diglyceride [14,17] These glycerides have much better fuel properties than the original oil. In 2013, its price recovered to about 900–965 $/ton, with the corresponding price of crude glycerol lower on a fourfold scale [14] These low prices of glycerol are beneficial for improving the potential of possible applications, and are very dependent on the biomass used in the production of the biodiesel.
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