Journal
RENEWABLE ENERGY
Volume 142, Issue -, Pages 535-542Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2019.04.103
Keywords
Microwave; Free fatty acid; Fatty acid methyl ester; Animal waste fats; Feedstock
Funding
- European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme [737802]
- H2020 Societal Challenges Programme [737802] Funding Source: H2020 Societal Challenges Programme
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Recently, due to its low cost there has been increased attention on Animal Waste Fats (AWFs) as a feedstock for biodiesel production. Advanced microwave technology has also been reported by many researchers to enhance the transesterification in biodiesel production. However, esterification of free fatty acids in the feedstock reported here has not attracted so much attention. AWFs come with its challenges namely, high free fatty acid (FFA) content and high water content. This study utilizes AWFs (tallow) containing very large amount of FFA; (25 wt%, 18 wt%, and 9.4 wt% FFA/AWFs) as feedstock for fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) production. A simple thermal pre-treatment technique followed microwave assisted esterification with methanol (MeOH) was conducted in a batch process to reduce the FFA content to as low as 1 wt% FFA, which is then suitable for the alkaline transesterification process. The pretreatment of AWFs at 88 degrees C to first reduce water and decrease viscosity, followed by an operating microwave power of 70 W producing a power density 1.147 mW/m(3), achieved a 15% increase in reduction of FFA over 30 W microwave power and conventional thermal method. Under optimum conditions, using 2.0 wt.wt% sulphuric acid catalyst/AWFs and 1:6 M ratio AWF/MeOH, the FFA conversion of 93 wt % was achieved. The results indicated that the pre-treatment and microwave application provided a faster route to high FFA reduction of AWFs during esterification process. The proposed technology is promising for the potential scale up industrial application. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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