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

这个小企业创新研究的第一阶段项目是开发一种高能效、高通量连续流固定床反应器技术，用于经济高效的藻类油生物柴油生产。在美国，藻类油已成为大规模生物柴油生产中最有前途的替代所有运输燃料的来源之一，在不久的将来，大量的藻类油将可用于生物柴油的生产。然而，目前的商业生物柴油生产过程——一种基于均相催化剂的酯交换过程——在过去20年里没有太大变化，而且远远不够高效。除了这种均相碱催化工艺所需的大量资本成本外，中和和洗涤过程以及废水的产生都是能源和劳动密集型的，而且不环保。为满足藻类油脂的大量生产需求，实现藻类生物柴油的经济性，需要开发一种高效节能、高通量的新型生物柴油生产工艺。一期研究重点是评价藻类油组成，优化固定床反应器配置和操作条件，生产符合ASTM D6751标准的生物柴油，验证技术可行性。该技术成功应用于藻类油生物柴油生产，将显著提高生物柴油生产率，简化产品分离纯化，改善甘油质量，消除洗涤步骤和相关废物流，减少工厂规模和资金成本。反过来，这将导致以高效的固定床多相催化工艺取代低效的均相催化剂生物柴油生产工艺，用于生产藻类油生物柴油，加快用国内生产的替代燃料替代石油柴油，减少能源消耗及其相关的环境影响，减少美国对外国石油进口的依赖，并使美国运输业能够保持强劲的，在国内和国际市场的竞争地位。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，使其可用于整个生物柴油行业。通过与美国最大的生物柴油公司合作，该技术将在3年内实现商用化。

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.