(507d) Direct Biodiesel Production from Harvested Microalgae Via in Situ Transesterification Using Hydrochloric Acid
AIChE Annual Meeting
2015
2015 AIChE Annual Meeting Proceedings
Sustainable Engineering Forum
Advances in Algal Biorefineries II
Wednesday, November 11, 2015 - 1:45pm to 2:10pm
This work presented in situ transesterification that is a combined process of lipid extraction and transesterification reaction using a homogeneous catalyst of hydrochloric acid (HCl) from wet microalgae. In situ transesterification was performed by heating the mixture of wet algal cells, HCl, methanol, and solvent in a single pot, leading to the yield of biodiesel, fatty acid methyl ester (FAME), over 90 % at 95 oC. The effects of reaction variables such as reaction temperature, amounts of catalyst, reactant, and solvent, and type of solvents on the yield were investigated. Using HCl as a catalyst for in situ transesterification is more beneficial than using H2SO4 because the FAME yield is less affected by moisture contents even higher than 80 %, and less amounts of catalyst and solvent are required in the HCl case. For the same molar amount of the two catalysts, HCl showed 15 wt. % higher FAME yield than H2SO4. This talk will show various sensitivity results of in-situ transesterification to produce biodiesel directly from wet microalgae using HCl as a catalyst.