Production of high quality biodiesel from waste feedstocks

从油炸和提炼活动中获得的废油是生产生物柴油的很有前途的油脂来源。然而，为了将这些废物升级为高质量的燃料，必须克服重大的技术挑战。在加工废油脂时，必须解决原料污染和可变性问题，以提供可添加到柴油中的一致产品。还迫切需要一种内在可靠的加工技术，以达到新的更严格的北美生物柴油标准。与加拿大生物柴油生产商的协商表明，关于生物柴油纯度的新标准对废物原料的处理施加了更大的限制。渥太华大学最近开发的一种生物柴油膜反应器提供了一种内在可靠的处理技术来应对这些挑战。这种连续膜反应器的新特点是能够同时将油脂原料转化为生物柴油，并将反应产物从原料中分离出来。早期的测试表明，在含有高游离脂肪酸的油脂的基础酯化过程中，膜反应器具有保留肥皂的能力。该反应堆已经用食品级菜籽油进行了测试，但在很大程度上仍未使用黄油(用过的煎炸油)等废油进行测试。我们建议确定膜反应器中使用的膜的临界通量。利用不同档次的黄油原料，生产符合新标准的生物柴油。该项目旨在开发技术，以减少生物柴油中的一价和二价盐，利用渗滤和各种离子交换树脂从废油中生产生物柴油。考察了膜孔径对膜反应器中游离脂肪酸和肥皂截留率的影响，以及生物柴油的结焦特性和蒸馏温度。

Waste oils obtained from frying and rendering activities are promising sources of lipids for the production of biodiesel. However, in order to upgrade these wastes to high quality fuels, significant technological challenges must be overcome. Issues of feedstock contamination and variability must be addressed in processing waste lipids to provide a consistent product that can be added to diesel fuel. There is also an urgent need for an inherently reliable processing technology that can achieve the new tighter North American biodiesel standards. Consultation with Canadian biodiesel producers has revealed that new standards on biodiesel purity are imposing greater constraints on the processing of waste feedstocks. A biodiesel membrane reactor recently developed at the University of Ottawa offers an inherently reliable processing technology to meet these challenges. The novel feature of this continuous membrane reactor is its ability to simultaneously transform lipid feedstock into biodiesel and separate the reaction products from the feedstock. Early tests point to the ability of the membrane reactor to retain soaps during the base esterification of oils containing high free fatty acids. The reactor has been tested with food-grade canola oil, but remains largely untested using waste oils such as yellow grease (used frying oils). We propose to determine the critical flux of the membranes used in the membrane reactor. Using various grades of yellow grease feedstock, we will produce biodiesel meeting the new standards. The project aims at developing technology to reduce mono and divalent salts in biodiesel produced from waste oils using diafiltration and various ion-exchange resins. The effect of membrane pore size on free fatty acids and soap retention in the membrane reactor, the coking properties and the distillation temperatures of the biodiesel produced will be determined.