Converting waste crude glycerol into butanol economically using ionic liquid extraction

自2000年以来，生物柴油市场以惊人的速度增长，这主要得益于立法、化石燃料成本的上升以及消费者对绿色和可持续发展的渴望。然而，近年来，关税激励的取消和可再生能源指令的修订使生物柴油行业面临压力。生产商需要找到提高效率和提高利润率的方法。问题是，将油脂转化为生物柴油的酯交换过程也会产生一种副产品，即粗甘油，其产量为总产量的10%至20%。粗甘油被列为危险废物，由于供过于求，其价值不大。我们的解决方案是将甘油转化为高价值产品（丁醇）的生物反应器，并使用ILs来实现经济复苏，从而使生物柴油生产商能够提高利润。

The biodiesel market has grown at a huge rate since 2000, thanks mainly to legislation, risingcosts of fossil fuels and a desire by consumers to become more green and sustainable.However, in recent years, the scrapping of duty incentives and a revision of the RenewableEnergy Directive has put the biodiesel industry under pressure. Producers need to find ways toincrease efficiency and improve margins. The problem is the transesterification process thatconverts oils and fats into biodiesel also yields a by-product of crude glycerol of 10% to 20%output volume. Crude glycerol is classified as a hazardous waste and has little value becauseof oversupply. Our solution is a bioreactor that converts glycerol into a high-value product(butanol) and uses ILs to enable economic recovery so that biodiesel producers can improvetheir margins.