Wide Range Of Feedstocks Research Articles

Advanced biodiesel production technologies: novel developments

Biodiesel, i.e. a mixture of monoalkyl esters of long chain fatty acids derived from renewable biological sources such as vegetable oils has in recent years emerged as an alternative fuel for transportation sector. The conventional method of producing biodiesel is through homogeneous catalytic transesterification; however, increased production costs associated with downstream purification steps have led to the development of more cost-effective and environmental friendly technologies. These advanced production technologies involve heterogeneous or enzymatic catalysts to produce biodiesel, as well as no catalysts in supercritical conditions. Heterogeneous catalytic systems can ease the separation of biodiesel from the reaction mixture along with the possibility of catalyst recovery, potentially leading to lower production costs; enzymatic catalysts give the same advantages, but transesterification can be carried out in milder conditions and with a wider range of feedstocks. Biodiesel synthesis in supercritical conditions composes another alternative to conventional methods due to higher reaction rates, shorter reaction times, and simpler biodiesel separation steps. Nevertheless, mass transfer limitations caused by diffusion problems between phases represent an hindrance for future establishment of these technologies, calling for the development of novel methods to intensify the process. These process intensification technologies include ultrasound irradiation, microwave heating, use of co-solvents, and membrane reactors. The main focus of this review is to discuss recent advances as regards to biodiesel production technologies, devoting a special attention to the use of novel catalysts, diversified feedstocks, besides an analysis of main operational parameters of transesterification processes.

Hot treatment and upgrading of syngas obtained by co-gasification of coal and wastes

Nowadays there is a great interest in producing energy through co-gasification of low grade coals and waste blends to increase the use of alternative feedstocks with low prices. The experimental results showed that the viability of co-gasification to process such blends and that by the right manipulation of coal and biomass or waste blends, syngas treatment and upgrading may be simplified and the cost of the overall process may be reduced. Blends of three different coal grades (sub-bituminous coal from Puertollano mines, South African bituminous coal and German brown coal) with two different types of biomass (pine and olive oil bagasse) or polyethylene (PE) were co-gasified. Blend co-gasification showed to be beneficial to reduce the negative characteristics of some coals, such as the high ash and sulphur contents, especially of Puertollano coal. Syngas obtained by these blends was hot cleaned and undesirable syngas components (tar, NH3 and H2S) were measured along the hot treatment tested, which proved to be suitable to treat syngas produced by a wide range of feedstocks. Different routes for syngas cleaning were analysed to reduce unsuitable components to values required by most common end-uses. The results obtained showed that the type of feedstock to be gasified is a key outcome on initial syngas composition, affecting greatly syngas cleaning needs, its application and the economic viability of the overall process.

Enhancing biofuel production by ultrasonics

This work evaluated the use of high-powered ultrasonics to enhance biofuel production in terms of efficiency and costs. A wide range of feed stocks, including switch grass, corn stover, and soft wood, were studied. The effect of ultrasonic pretreatment on the removal of lignin for hydrolysis of starches and cellulose to fermentable sugars was studied. It was found that many of the pretreatments were very successful in enhancing lignin removal. For example, time of dissolution of lingo-cellulosic biomass in ionic liquids was reduced from hours to minutes accompanied by a significant decrease in energy consumption compared to mechanical stirring. In addition, it was found that hydrolysis of corn starch could be greatly accelerated utilizing ultrasonics. Economic models showed that the technology, once implemented, would have a payback period of less than one year. The work also focused on biodiesel production. It was seen that ultrasonics accelerated the transesterification process so that soy bean oil could be converted to biodiesel in less than a minute, compared to 45 min using traditional methods. It was shown that yeast grown from glycerin, a co-product of biodiesel production, could be extracted and simultaneously converted to biodiesel with ultrasonics in less than a minute, compared to traditional techniques that require multiple processes and relatively long cycle times (+1 h).

Development and qualification of a novel virus removal filter for cell culture applications

Commercial bioreactors employing mammalian cell cultures to express biological or pharmaceutical products can become contaminated with adventitious viruses. The high expense of such a contamination can be reduced by passing all gases and fluids feeding the bioreactor through virus inactivation or removal steps, which act as viral barriers around the bioreactor. A novel virus barrier filter has been developed for removing viruses from serum-free cell culture media. This filter removes the 20 nm minute virus of mice by >3 log reduction value (LRV), the 28 nm bacteriophage PhiX174 by >4.5 LRV, the mycoplasma Acholeplasma laidlawii by > or =8.8 LRV, and the bacteria Brevundimonas diminuta by > or =9.2 LRV. Robust removal occurs primarily by size exclusion as demonstrated over a wide range of feedstocks and operating conditions. The filtered media are indistinguishable from unfiltered media in growth of cells to high densities, maintenance of cell viability, and productivity in expressing protein product. Insulin and transferrin show high passage through the filter. The virus barrier filter can be autoclaved. The relatively high membrane permeability enables the use of a moderate filtration area.

Versatile, low-cost and compact fuel processor for low-temperature fuel cells

This article describes a fuel processor technology based on steam reforming, in combination with a multi-stage hydrogen purifier, to produce very high purity hydrogen from a wide range of feedstocks. It is particularly well suited for use in PEM and alkaline fuel cells. The company is already working on integration into fuel cell systems, with field-testing to start in the next few months.

Sulphurised vegetable oils as EP additives for industrial gear oil formulations

AbstractRenewable sources can provide, besides fuel, a wide range of feed stocks for the organic chemicals industry. Utilisation of non‐edible vegetable oils and speciality chemicals has, therefore, become relevant in recent times. Sulphurisation of three triglyceride oils (karanja, rapeseed, and castor oils) and liquid wax (jojoba) has been investigated in detail in order to examine the potential of sulphurised vegetable oils for use as extreme‐pressure (EP) additives for developing formulations for industrial gear oils. The capacity of these oils with respect to the uptake of sulphur, the limitations of some of the sulphurised products for use as EP additives, and the problems in developing such formulations for industrial gear oils, are discussed.

New improvements in modeling kinetic schemes for hydrocarbons pyrolysis reactors

In recent years, significant improvements have been reached both in the technology of hydrocarbons pyrolysis for olefines production and in the modeling of the kinetic schemes involved. Some of the reasons for these improvements are: •New sophisticated instrumentation for continuous analysis of effluents from commercial units.•Economic interest for non-conventional feedstocks, e.g. vacuum gasoils, hydrotreated heavy gasoils, recycle fractions, reformed naphthas and/or other refinery streams.•Improvements in computer, technology, hardware and software, which allow handling , in real time, complex systems of kinetic equations.•New strategies for on-line plant control and optimization.The rising needs of accuracy in predicting the reactor effluents under a wider range of feedstocks and different reactor coils demand models even more flexible and more detailed than the best ones actually available. In this paper the criteria for the development of complex and non-regular kinetic schemes (up to thousands of reactions involved) are presented and discussed. The automatic generation of the elementary reaction stoichiometries and the non-Arrhenius behaviour of the kinetic constants are also considered.Some effort has also been devoted to the optimization and data reconciliation of the reactors effluents within the framework of the entire olefins plant.

Panel Discussion 2 How Much Control is Needed?

The question on how much control is needed is timeless and is always faced by process designers and operators at stages of process design or upgrading. This draws another set of equally important questions such as:. o Why to control. o Which controls to use. o Where to apply controls. o How to proceed with control system design and acquisition. These questions are best dealt with in light of:. o Present trends in the process industry. o Process operation requirements. The process industry is moving steadily toward:. o Fewer process steps. o Smaller inventory of materials. o Extensive heat integration. o Wider range of feedstocks, (not necessarily in Kuwait and other oil-producing countries). o Greater variations in demand. o More batch or semicontinuous operations. o More attention to effects on environment, safety, good and improved working conditions. These trends are in turn affected by the new trends in process control systems, which includes new control techniques and new instrumentation technology, which are known to provide:. o Higher production quality. o Reduced operating costs. o Improved overall system stability and safety. It was pointed out, however, that although approximately 95% of the control loops in a process environment are performing well with existing standard PID controllers, the remaining 5% can definitely benefit from the introduction of new control techniques. The need to use new controls will thus be primarily decided by such process operation requirements as:. o Nature and number of load disturbances to the process. o Possible variations in the characteristics of the process, e.g., dead time and gain variations. o Safety requirements. o Potential process constraints. o Final product specifications. To meet these requirements and constraints, process engineers have used some of the following tools:. o Manual control. o Feedback control. o Nonlinear feedback control. o Auto-select control. o Adaptive feedback. o Cascade control. o Ratio control (fixed and variable). o Feed forward control. o Decoupling controls. More recent control tools rely on such techniques as: as. o optimal control. o Adaptive techniques. o Multivariable control. o Robust control. These controls have a hierarchy represented by a pyramid in which the lowest level controls are at the base. The control hierarchy must be supplied by all the lower levels; for example, advanced feedback controls are impossible without good feedback loops, and plant optimization must have local optimization first. New technology provided wider flexibility in placing intermediate levels and in choosing when to place them. This was the case presented in the paper by watanabe (see Proceedings) when he chose to put feed forward controls into the digital computer (TDC-2000 and IBM ACS), implementation of controls in the higher levels of the pyramid requires more knowledge about the process to be controlled from a chemical engineering perspective. One factor that affects the implementation of controls in general is the availability of adequate sensors, but, as pointed out, sensor technology is lagging behind control technology. Innovative ideas are appearing in modern measurement techniques, such as using gas chromotographs for closing control loops, an idea that was totally out of the question only few years ago.

Development of Mitsubishi Thermal Cracking Furnace (M-TCF) for Production of Ethylene

Mitsubishi Petrochemical Co., Ltd. and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. have jointly succeeded in the development of Mitsubishi Thermal Cracking Furnace (M-TCF) in which wide variety of feed stocks and high productivity for ethylene production, propylene and aromatics, are achievable.M-TCF, which has been developed from the standpoint of an ethylene manufactures, can be efficiently operated for a wide range of feed stocks from ethane to heavy gas oil in combination with Mitsubishi Transferline Heat Exchanger (M-TLX). With its high product capacity and the unique structure, the M-TCF assures an easy operation and maintenance of an otherwise troublesome cracking unit.The correlations among the properties of the feed stocks, the cracking conditions, the product distribution and the decoking intervals have been clarified from an operation of a prototype test unit for about three years with various feed stocks.Concerning the thermal cracking of gas oil fraction, it has been confirmed that high temperature and short residence time are the optimum conditions for the improvement of total yield of useful products such as ethylene, propylene, and C6-C8 aromatics.