SBIR Phase I: Continuous Flow Fixed-bed Biodiesel Production from Algae Oil

这个小型企业创新研究第一阶段项目旨在开发一种高能效、高通量的连续流动固定床反应器技术，用于经济高效地生产藻类油生物柴油。藻类油已成为大规模生产生物柴油的最有前景的来源之一，以取代美国所有的运输燃料。在不久的将来，将有大量的藻类油可用于生物柴油的生产。然而，目前商业化的生物柴油生产工艺--基于均相催化剂的酯交换工艺--在过去20年里没有太大变化，远远谈不上效率。除了这种均质碱催化工艺所需的巨额资本成本外，中和和洗工艺以及废水的产生都是能源和劳动力密集型的，而且不环保。为了满足大规模藻类油生产的需求，实现藻类生物柴油的经济性，需要开发一种高效节能、高通量的生物柴油生产新工艺。一期研究重点是评价藻油成分，优化固定床反应器结构和操作条件，生产ASTM D6751标准生物柴油，并论证技术可行性。该技术在藻油生物柴油生产中的成功应用，将显著提高生物柴油的生产效率，简化产品分离提纯，改善甘油质量，消除洗涤步骤和相关废流，降低装置规模和投资成本。这将反过来导致用高效固定床多相催化工艺取代低效率的均相催化剂生物柴油生产工艺，以生产藻类油生物柴油，加快以国内生产的替代燃料替代石油柴油，降低能源消耗及其对环境的影响，减少美国对外国石油进口的依赖，并使美国运输业在国内外市场保持强大的竞争地位。这项技术将在我们公司商业化。此外，我们将把它授权给生物柴油生产商或工厂开发商，让整个生物柴油行业都能使用。通过与美国最大的生物柴油公司合作，这项技术将在三年内实现商业化。

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project is to develop a highly energy efficient, high throughput continuous flow fixed-bed reactor technology for cost-effective algae oil biodiesel production. Algae oil has emerged as one of the most promising sources for mass biodiesel production to replace all transportation fuel in the U.S. A large amount of algae oil will be available in the near future for biodiesel production. However, the current commercial biodiesel production process - a homogeneous catalyst based transesterification process - has not changed much in the last two decades and is far from being efficient. In addition to the significant capital costs required for this homogeneous alkali-catalyzed process, the neutralization and washing processes, along with the production of waste water, are energy and labor intensive and not environmentally friendly. To meet the mass algae oil production demand and achieve the algae biodiesel economy, a new highly energy efficient and high throughput biodiesel production process needs to be developed. In Phase I, research will focus on evaluating the algae oil composition, optimizing the fixed-bed reactor configuration and operating conditions, producing ASTM D6751 standard biodiesel, and proving the technical feasibility. The successful application of this technology to algae oil biodiesel production will significantly increase biodiesel productivity, simplify product separation and purification, improve glycerin quality, eliminate the washing step and associated waste stream, and reduce the plant size and capital costs. This will, in turn, lead to the replacement of the low-efficiency homogeneous catalyst biodiesel production process with a highly efficient fixed-bed heterogeneous catalytic process for algae oil biodiesel production, expedite the substitution of petroleum diesel with domestically produced alternative fuel, decrease energy consumption and its associated environmental impact, reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil imports, and enable the U.S. transportation industry to sustain a strong, competitive position in domestic and world markets. This technology will be commercialized in our company. Additionally, we will license it to biodiesel producers or plant developers to make it available to the entire biodiesel industry. With collaborations with the largest biodiesel companies in the U.S., this technology will be commercialized within three years.