Recovery and Purification of Glycerine as By-product from Philippine Coconut Methyl Ester

The study is about the recovery and purification of glycerine as a by-product from coconut methyl ester production in the Philippines. The aqueous layer produced from settling or phase splitting of the methyl ester after the transesterification process was subjected to various treatments like acidification, neutralization, concentration in vacuo in order to get back the crude glycerine. The crude glycerine obtained from the laboratory and scale-up process conformed with the specification set by the British standard for crude glycerine. The recovered glycerine is composed of: 84.92%, glycerine; 8.03%, ash; 4.72%, H20; 2.32%, MONG. Further distillation yielded a refined glycerine that meets with the specification set by USP. The average glycerine content of refined glycerine is 96.86%; ash, 0.06%; water, 1.10%, refractive index @ 20°C, 1.4696, specific gravity at 25°C, 1.296 g.

Production of Biogas Using Maize Silage Supplemented with Residual Glycerine from Biodiesel Manufacturing

The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of residual glycerine (5 and 10% w/w) from the biodiesel industry, used as a co-substrate, on biogas production from maize silage. The experiments were conducted in a laboratory-scale, single-stage anaerobic digester at 39ºC and hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 60 d. Addition of 5% residual glycerine caused organic load rate (OLR) to increase to 1.82 compared with 1.31 g organic dry matter (ODM) L-1d-1 for maize silage alone. The specific biogas production rate and biogas yield were 1.34 L L-1d-1 and 0.71 L g ODM-1 respectively, i.e. 86% and 30% higher than for maize alone. Increasing the residual glycerine content to 10% increased OLR (2.01 g ODM L-1d-1), but clearly decreased the specific biogas production rate and biogas yield to 0.50 L L-1d-1 and 0.13 L g ODM-1 respectively. This suggested that 10% glycerine content inhibited methanogenic bacteria and organics conversion into biogas. As a result, there was accumulation of propionic and valeric acids throughout the experiment.

Alcoholysis of Nyamplung Seed Oil Using Potassium Carbonate Catalyst

The production of glycerol and ester by alcoholysis of vegetable oils has been widely studied. Various catalysts, such as sodium and potassium hydroxide and sulfuric acid have been used to increase the rate of reaction. This preliminary research studied the possibility of using potassium carbonate catalyst. The experiment was conducted in an autoclave. A certain amount of nyamplung seed oil was poured into the autoclave and then the heater was switched on to heat up the oil to the required temperature of reaction. Besides, a mixture of ethanol and potassium carbonate was heated in a flask equipped with condenser to form ethanolate. As soon as the required temperature was reached, the ethanolate was quickly put into the autoclave containing the nyamplung seed oil. The temperature of the reaction was kept constant for a period of time. At the end of each process, a sample was withdrawn and analyzed for its glycerine content by acetin method. The variables studied were reaction time and catalyst concentration. The experimental data were evaluated by applying pseudo homogeneous approach. It was found that data were in good agreement with first order reaction with respect to nyamplung seed oil. Using an equivalent ratio of 5.1 ethanol to nyamplung seed oil, a temperature of lOQoC,and an agitation speed of 150 rpm, the favorable catalyst concentration was found to be at 0.008 gram of potassium carbonate per gram of nyamplung seed oil. Under this condition, the glyceride conversion was 0.5159 in 75 min.