TY - JOUR
T1 - Microwave-mediated non-catalytic transesterification of algal biomass under supercritical ethanol conditions
AU - Patil, Prafulla D.
AU - Reddy, Harvind
AU - Muppaneni, Tapaswy
AU - Ponnusamy, Sundaravadivelnathan
AU - Cooke, Peter
AU - Schuab, Tanner
AU - Deng, Shuguang
N1 - Funding Information:
This project was partially supported by Department of Energy (DE-EE0003046) , Air Force Research Laboratory (FA8650-11-C-2127) and National Science Foundation (EEC-1028968) .
PY - 2013
Y1 - 2013
N2 - A novel integrated approach has been proposed to convert lipid-rich, dry algae (Nannochloropsis salina) into fatty acid ethyl esters (FAEE) under microwave-mediated supercritical ethanol (MW-SCE) conditions with a non-catalytic transesterification approach. This process enables simultaneous extraction of lipids from algal biomass and conversion/transesterification of them into algal biodiesel in a relatively short reaction time, which may reduce energy consumption versus traditional processes due to simplified separation and purification steps. High conversion rates can be possible when the extractive-transesterification of algal biomass is performed near-critical or supercritical conditions. The use of passive heating elements made of silicon carbide (SiC) to aid the microwave-mediated heating process at higher temperatures is also described. Experimental runs were designed to optimize the process parameters to evaluate the effect on the algal biodiesel under controlled power conditions. The algal biomass characterization and algal biodiesel analysis were performed using various analytical instruments such as FTIR, SEM-EDS, TGA and GC-MS. It was demonstrated in this work that this direct conversion technique has the potential to provide an energy-efficient and economical route for algal biodiesel production.
AB - A novel integrated approach has been proposed to convert lipid-rich, dry algae (Nannochloropsis salina) into fatty acid ethyl esters (FAEE) under microwave-mediated supercritical ethanol (MW-SCE) conditions with a non-catalytic transesterification approach. This process enables simultaneous extraction of lipids from algal biomass and conversion/transesterification of them into algal biodiesel in a relatively short reaction time, which may reduce energy consumption versus traditional processes due to simplified separation and purification steps. High conversion rates can be possible when the extractive-transesterification of algal biomass is performed near-critical or supercritical conditions. The use of passive heating elements made of silicon carbide (SiC) to aid the microwave-mediated heating process at higher temperatures is also described. Experimental runs were designed to optimize the process parameters to evaluate the effect on the algal biodiesel under controlled power conditions. The algal biomass characterization and algal biodiesel analysis were performed using various analytical instruments such as FTIR, SEM-EDS, TGA and GC-MS. It was demonstrated in this work that this direct conversion technique has the potential to provide an energy-efficient and economical route for algal biodiesel production.
KW - Algal biomass
KW - Biodiesel
KW - Extractive transesterification
KW - Microwave irradiation
KW - Supercritical ethanolysis
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U2 - 10.1016/j.supflu.2012.11.023
DO - 10.1016/j.supflu.2012.11.023
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84883655532
SN - 0896-8446
VL - 79
SP - 67
EP - 72
JO - Journal of Supercritical Fluids
JF - Journal of Supercritical Fluids
ER -