Integrated reactive absorption process for synthesis of fatty esters.
Reactive separations using green catalysts offer great opportunities for manufacturing fatty esters, involved in specialty chemicals and biodiesel production. Integrating reaction and separation into one unit provides key benefits such as: simplified operation, no waste, reduced capital investment and low operating costs. This work presents a novel heat-integrated reactive absorption process that eliminates all conventional catalyst related operations, efficiently uses the raw materials and equipment, and considerably reduces the energy requirements for biodiesel production--85% lower as compared to the base case. Rigorous simulations based on experimental results were carried out using Aspen Plus and Dynamics. Despite the high degree of integration, the process is well controllable using an efficient control structure proposed in this work. The main results are provided for a plant producing 10 ktpy fatty acid methyl esters from methanol and waste vegetable oil with high free fatty acids content, using sulfated zirconia as solid acid catalyst.
Kiss
Anton Alexandru
AA
AkzoNobel Research, Development & Innovation, Process Technology ECG, Velperweg 76, 6824 BM, Arnhem, The Netherlands. Tony.Kiss@akzonobel.com
Bildea
Costin Sorin
CS
D000042:Absorption; D001709:Biotechnology / Q000191:economics / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D057168:Distillation; D004951:Esterification; D004952:Esters / Q000378:metabolism*; D005227:Fatty Acids / Q000378:metabolism*; D006358:Hot Temperature; D007700:Kinetics
D004952:Esters; D005227:Fatty Acids