Direct conversion of wet algae to crude biodiesel under supercritical ethanol conditions

Journal Article · Tue Aug 06 00:00:00 EDT 2013 · Fuel

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2013.07.090· OSTI ID:1097057

Reddy, Harvind K. ^[1]; Muppaneni, Tapaswy ^[1]; Patil, Prafulla D. ^[2]; Ponnusamy, Sundaravadivelnathan ^[1]; Cooke, Peter ^[3]; Schaub, Tanner ^[4]; Deng, Shuguang ^[1]

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1. New Mexico State Univ., Las Cruces, NM (United States). Chemical Engineering Dept.
2. American Refining Group, Inc., Bradford, PA (United States)
3. New Mexico State Univ., Las Cruces, NM (United States). Core University Research Resource Lab.
4. New Mexico State Univ., Las Cruces, NM (United States). Bio Security and Food Safety Center

This paper presents a single-step, environmentally friendly approach for the direct conversion of wet algae to crude biodiesel under supercritical ethanol conditions. Ethanol was used for the simultaneous extraction and transesterification of lipids in algae to produce fatty acid ethyl esters at supercritical conditions. In this work the effects of process parameters dry algae to ethanol (wt./vol.) ratio (1:6-1:15), reaction temperature (245-270 C), and reaction time (2-30 min.) on the yield of fatty acid ethyl esters (FAEE) were studied. 67% conversion was achieved at 265 C and 20 min of reaction time. The calorific value of a purified biodiesel sample produced at optimum conditions was measured to be 43 MJ/kg, which is higher than that of fatty acid methyl esters produced from the same biomass. The purified fatty acid ethyl esters were analyzed using GC-MS and FTIR. TGA analysis of algal biomass and purified FAEE was presented along with TEM images of the biomass captured before and after supercritical ethanol transesterification. This green conversion process has the potential to provide an energy-efficient and economical route for the production of renewable biodiesel production.

• Research Organization: New Mexico State Univ., Las Cruces, NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)
• DOE Contract Number: EE0003046
• OSTI ID: 1097057
• Report Number(s): DOE-DANF-0003046-K9; PII: S0016236113006893
• Journal Information: Fuel, Vol. 115, Issue C; ISSN 0016-2361
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

09 BIOMASS FUELS
Single-step conversion
Supercritical ethanol
Wet algae
Biodiesel
Fatty acid ethyl ester