Microreactor Produces Biodiesel

Professor Jovanovic, at Oregon State University, is developing a tiny reactor the size of a credit card that can convert vegetable oil into biodiesel.  The reactor has tiny parallel channels, each smaller than a human hair, through which vegetable oil and alcohol are pumped simultaneously. Such microreactors can produce biodiesel between 10 and 100 times faster than traditional methods.

"If we're successful with this, nobody will ever make biodiesel any other way," Jovanovic said.

Essentially, the reactors, which can range in size from less than a square inch to several square inches, use tiny, parallel channels no larger in diameter than a human hair, to bring the alcohol and vegetable oil into contact with each other in the presence of a sodium hydroxide catalyst, producing biodiesel and glycerin.

One of the hurdles that must be overcome before the reactors could be successfully implemented would be developing an economical microfiltration system that could yield oil pure enough to be pumped through the tiny channels in the reactor.

According to the Capital Press, the microreactors, each of which produces only a minute amount of biodiesel, are designed to be used with thousands of others of the same size in a single, integrated system. The reactors can be stacked in banks, much like a fuel cell, to increase production levels to the volume required for commercial use. Arranged this way, a unit about the size of a computer printer and costing $1,000 to $5,000 could produce as much as 50,000 to 100,000 gallons of biodiesel a year.

Conventional production requires dissolving sodium hydroxide, a catalyst, and alcohol, then stirring this blend with vegetable oil in large tanks for about two hours. The resulting mixture has to sit and react for 12 to 24 hours, forming biodiesel along with glycerin. After separating the glycerin from biodiesel, it still contains some sodium hydroxide which must be neutralized with an acid. The glycerin then can be used to make other products, such as soaps.

Resources:

Down on the Bio Refinery, JC Winnie, After Gutenberg, April 20, 2006 
Tiny Reactor Boosts Biodiesel Production, William McCall, AP, April 19, 2006
Microreactor for Distributed Production of Biodiesel, Green Car Congress, February 21, 2006
Making biodiesel on the farm, John Schmitz, Capital Press, April 14, 2006

Technorati tags: biodiesel, biofuels, energy, technology

Comments

[Cervus]

Get a load of this:

Dynoil LLC Confirms it will Build a 100,000 Barrel per Day Bio-Diesel Refinery

Dynoil announces it will build a 100,000 barrel per day Bio-Diesel Refinery in the Houston, Texas, US Gulf Coast. Total production of Bio-Diesel will be approximately 1.5 billion gallons per year.

Newport Beach, CA. (PRWEB) April 23, 2006 -- A. Vernon Wright, Chief Executive Officer of Dynoil LLC, (“Dynoil”), a Delaware Limited Liability Company, today announced its intentions to build a 1,500,000,000 (1.5B) gallons-per-year refinery to process traditional vegetable oil feedstock into environmentally friendly bio-diesel.

[Freddy B]

I am highly skeptical of that. It doesnt make sense on so many levels. First off how are they going to guarntee that much virgin oil, then will they even be able to sell that much fuel? Never happen not for a few years anyway.

[Dbe2200]

How fine does the filtration have to be? One or two microns is a piece of cake. Does it have to be finer than that? Does the reactor mix the lye and alcohol? One of the steps in biodiesel production is to determine the fatty acid content of the oil to adjust the amount of lye needed. I assume that step still needs to be done. The virtue of this idea is its scalability. What intrigues me is the idea of very small units that could even be used by consumers to convert waste fats from the kitchen into small amounts of biodiesel. The cumulative effect of that could be significant.

[Derek]

Just a technical note. I think the alcohol is the catalyst, not the NaOH. Supposedly the alcohol can be recovered after processing, though a lot of backyard systems don't.

[reden rodriguez]

this does sound like a tall order. how far along the technology line have they actually achieved?

[G.venkatayyan]

WE NEED TO PRESENT A PAPER ON NANOTECHNOLOGY THROUGH BIODIESEL

[Gary G. Haynes]

i am interested in learning more about biodiesel and the process
i have 3 diesel trucks, and 2 farm tractors

please send me any information available

thanks

gary haynes

[d2 diesel fuel]

such a great post!