TY - JOUR
T1 - Single-step conversion of wet Nannochloropsis gaditana to biodiesel under subcritical methanol conditions
AU - Sitthithanaboon, Weena
AU - Reddy, Harvind K.
AU - Muppaneni, Tapaswy
AU - Ponnusamy, Sundaravadivelnathan
AU - Punsuvon, Vittaya
AU - Holguim, Francisco
AU - Dungan, Barry
AU - Deng, Shuguang
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by Faculty of Science, Kasetsart University for their support budget of Bilateral Research Cooperation. We also would like to thank the Higher Education Research and National Research University Project of Thailand, Office of Higher Education Commission. Finally, we grateful to Energy Policy and Planning Office, Ministry of Energy and the center of Excellence-oil Palm, Kasetsart University for partial support of this research. This work was also partially supported by the DOE REAP project (DE-EE0006316).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved.
PY - 2015/5/1
Y1 - 2015/5/1
N2 - A single-step process for a direct conversion of wet algal biomass containing about 80% of water into biodiesel under subcritical methanol conditions is developed and presented in this work. This process may have energetic advantages with high free fatty acid (FFA) and water contents as the feedstock. At elevated temperatures, water hydrolysis and FFA esterification can simultaneously occur in a subcritical state. The influences of process parameters including reaction temperature (150-225 °C), reaction time (15-120 min) and methanol to wet biomass (vol./wt.) ratio (3:1-8:1) were investigated. The optimal conditions for this process are reported as: methanol to wet biomass (vol./wt.) ratio of around 6:1, temperature and time of about 225 °C, and reaction time of 90 min. The fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs) were analyzed with GC-MS, FT-IR and thermogravimetric (TGA). This process does not require a catalyst and any drying pre-treatment steps. Thus, the process is cost-saving and environmental friendly for renewable biodiesel production.
AB - A single-step process for a direct conversion of wet algal biomass containing about 80% of water into biodiesel under subcritical methanol conditions is developed and presented in this work. This process may have energetic advantages with high free fatty acid (FFA) and water contents as the feedstock. At elevated temperatures, water hydrolysis and FFA esterification can simultaneously occur in a subcritical state. The influences of process parameters including reaction temperature (150-225 °C), reaction time (15-120 min) and methanol to wet biomass (vol./wt.) ratio (3:1-8:1) were investigated. The optimal conditions for this process are reported as: methanol to wet biomass (vol./wt.) ratio of around 6:1, temperature and time of about 225 °C, and reaction time of 90 min. The fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs) were analyzed with GC-MS, FT-IR and thermogravimetric (TGA). This process does not require a catalyst and any drying pre-treatment steps. Thus, the process is cost-saving and environmental friendly for renewable biodiesel production.
KW - Biodiesel
KW - Fatty acid methyl ester
KW - Nannochloropsis gaditana
KW - Subcritical methanol condition
KW - Wet algae
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U2 - 10.1016/j.fuel.2015.01.051
DO - 10.1016/j.fuel.2015.01.051
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84922572921
VL - 147
SP - 253
EP - 259
JO - Fuel
JF - Fuel
SN - 0016-2361
ER -