Untitled - UTPedia - Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP)

However, the volume and yield of bioethanol decrease as the amount of sodium methoxide catalyst increases. The discussion section discusses bioalcohol growth, bioalcohol yield, and the amount of bioalcohol that should be produced from sodium methoxide and calcium methoxide. In conclusion, bioalcohol production using sodium methoxide is favored over calcium methoxide as it gives high yield and less quantity required.

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND OF STUDY
PROBLEM STATEMENT
OBJECTIVES
SCOPE OF STUDY
FEASIBILITY OF PROJECT WITHIN THE SCOPE AND TIME FRAME
CHAPTER 2

The successful production of a high yield of bioalcohol will lead to the integration of bioalcohol and biodiesel, in such a way that the bioalcohol produced will be used to produce biodiesel. As the title of the project implies, the idea of this project is to obtain a high yield of bioalcohol. To determine the highest yield of bioalcohol that can be obtained by manipulating the amount of catalyst used.

INTRODUCTION TO BIOFUEL

OVERVIEW OF BIOFUEL
GENERATIONS OF BIOFUEL
BIOALCOHOL AS TRANSPORTATION FUEL
BIOALCOHOL WORLD DEMAND
INTEGRATION OF BIOALCOHOL AND BIODIESEL
SUSTAINABILITY OF BIOALCOHOL
CHAPTER 3

Ethanol is the most common type of bioalcohol, while butanol and propanol are some of the lesser known ones. The by-product of the process, namely digestate, can easily be used as manure or fertilizer for agricultural use (first generation biofuels). In 2007, Brazil sold 2 million biofuel cars, equivalent to 85.6% of the total cars sold in Brazil.

Table 1: Advantages and disadvantages of neat methanol (100% methanol) as transportation fuel

LITERATURE REVIEW - BIOALCOHOL PRODUCTION PROCESS ROUTES

BIOCHEMICAL - FERMENTATION
THERMOCHEMICAL PROCESS
INTEGRATED THERMOCHEMICAL AND BIOCHEMICAL PROCESSES
PARTIAL SAPONIFICATION
CHAPTER 4 RAW MATERIALS

PALM OIL
TRIGLYCERIDE
FATTY ACIDS
CATALYST USED

CHAPTER 5 PARAMETER USED

MANIPULATING VARIABLE
QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS

CHAPTER 6

There are two main palm-based source products, namely crude palm oil (CPO) and palm kernel oil (PKO). Palm oil is obtained from the mesocarp (the fleshy part of the fruit wall) and depending on the variety and age of the palm (refer Figure 12). Palm oil with an estimated global (annual) production of 25 - 27 million tonnes is the second most produced oil in the world.

By country, the main producers of palm oil are Malaysia (13 million tons) and Indonesia (10 million tons), and together they have provided. Approximately million tons) of global palm oil production is exported to other countries. European countries have promoted the use of palm oil by injecting hundreds of millions of dollars in national subsidies for biodiesel.

Palm oil plantations are often expanded by clearing existing forest land and draining peat swamps. Currently, Malaysia is emerging as one of the leading producers of biofuels, with 91 approved plants and a handful now operating, all based on palm oil. There are nine main fatty acids in palm oil - they are named according to the number of carbon atoms in the acid.

The behavior of palm oil and its physical characteristics are strongly influenced by the chemistry of these individual fatty acids and the position they occupy in the triglyceride structure.

Figure 9: Biochemical process of producing bioalcohol through fermentation. (Dennis Srhuet_le)

UTP CURRENT RESEARCH

NOVEL ROUTE OF BIOFUEL PRODUCTION (BIOMETHANOL AND BIODIESEL) FROM COCONUT AND MAIZE
METHANOL SYNTHESIS FROM NATURAL SOURCES
EFFECTS OF EXPERIMENTAL SETUP ON BIOALCOHOL PRODUCTION FROM PALM KERNEL OIL (PKO)
EFFECT OF CATALYST ADDITION IN BIOALCOHOL PRODUCTION FROM PALM KERNEL OIL
CHAPTER 7 METHODOLOGY

EXPERIMENTAL METHODOLOGY
ANALYTICAL METHODOLOGY .1 Gas Chromatography

CHAPTER 8

The last experiment is to produce biodiesel by changing the reaction time, volume of base Ca(OH)2 and percentage of catalyst (KOH). Ina Czarina (2007), and is intended to investigate the effect of different experimental setups on bioalcohol production from PKO and to find the best experimental setup that can produce bioalcohol on a laboratory scale. Four methods of bioalcohol production were analyzed, namely: Method I: Reaction using water bath, Method H: Reaction using ultrasonic bath, Method III: Reaction using hot plate and magnetic stirrer (with and without condenser) and Method IV: Reaction with direct heating method.

Shahidah (2008), and the aim of this project is to observe the effect of catalyst addition in the production of bioalcohol. Saponification reaction between PKO and calcium methoxide as basic bioalcohol production and catalyst for bioalcohol production. In this experiment, bioalcohol will be produced using the saponification method without the presence of a catalyst.

The parameters used for all experimental setups are based on the optimum condition obtained from previous research on bioalcohol production using the reactor from H. The procedures for this experiment will be the same as in Section 7.1.1 - Bioalcohol Production without Catalyst. The first experiment used 0.05 wt% NaOMe catalyst and was repeated twice.

Objective: To study the effect of different amounts of calcium methoxide as base and catalyst on bioalcohol production.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

OVERVIEW

EXPERIMENT 1: BIOALCOHOL PRODUCTION WITHOUT CATALYST

As noted in the experimental procedure, overheating can cause the alcohol to evaporate, since the boiling point of methanol is about 65 °C. Additionally, propanol and butanol are not shown in the GC results because the values are too small, and the GC is set to display values up to four decimal places. In addition, due to equipment failure of the rotary evaporator, which has a higher temperature range, the experiment can only be performed using the rotary evaporator, which has the largest temperature range.

Since the temperature of the rotary evaporator is set to a maximum temperature of 90°C, a thermometer is placed in the heating bath on the rotary evaporator. And this could be because the heat from the heater is being released into the environment. Therefore, it is assumed that not all propanol and butanol evaporate during the distillation of the reacted product using a rotary evaporator.

EXPERIMENT 2: BIOALCOHOL PRODUCTION WITH PRESENCE OF CATALYST, NaOMe

From Tables 10 and 11, the average concentration of methanol for 0.05 wt. % NaOMe relative to the weight of the oil is lower compared to 0. Therefore, we can say that as the amount of catalyst increases, so does the concentration of the produced bioalcohol. Swt % NaOMe by weight of oil was of no consequence as the saponification reaction produced soap.

After a two-hour reaction, two layers of reacted products are visible. The color of the lower part is light yellow, and the upper part is dark yellow. When the mixture is sent to the rotary evaporator for the distillation process, the mixture in the evaporating flask boils while it is being distilled.

All the mixture in the evaporating flask goes directly to the collecting flask, leaving neither liquid nor solid residue in the evaporating flask. Provided that the boiling point for methanol and ethanol are 65°C and 78°C, respectively, it is assumed that there is no methanol and ethanol in the reacted products. For experiment 2, it can be concluded that as the amount of catalyst increases, the yield and concentration of bioalcohol increases.

However, excessive amount of catalyst can lead to high yield of soap and less yield of ester, causing the reacted products to produce soap rather than bioalcohol.

EXPERIMENT 3: BIOALCOHOL PRODUCTION BY USING CALCIUM METHOXIDE, CaOMe

Since methanol production is favored over ethanol production, method IV is chosen to be the experimental setup for this experiment. However, no bioalcohol is generated as the mixtures are sent to the rotary evaporator for the distillation process. This may be because the amount of the base that is calcium is not sufficient.

For the reaction to take place, 40m1 CaOMe is needed to react with 200m1 PKO. For the subsequent experiments, an additional weight percentage of CaOMe is added along with 40m1 of CaOMe. From Table 13 to 17, the mass and volume of bioalcohol production increases as the amount of calcium methoxide increases.

Thus, it can be said that the optimum condition for ethanol production is at 0.1 wt % of calcium methoxide. Therefore, it can also be said that the optimal condition of propanol production is at this amount of calcium methoxide. From the results, it can be concluded that methanol will continue to increase as the amount of calcium methoxide increases.

Optimum conditions for the production of the highest yield can only be determined if this project is scaled up so that the experiments are extended to a larger amount of calcium methoxide.

Table 12: Results comparison between method II and method N of bioalcohol production by using calcium methoxide

AUTOCATALYTIC REACTION

INCREMENT OF BIOALCOHOL PRODUCTION

For increasing the biomethanol concentration of the sodium methoxide catalyst, the difference is significant compared to increasing the bioethanol concentration. This is due to the methoxide ion CH3O- from the sodium methoxide catalyst, which helps to display more biomethanol instead of bioethanol, resulting in a slow increase in bioethanol concentration. This shows that the concentration of the produced bioalcohol up to 0.1 wt% NaOMe based on the weight of the oil is proportional to the amount of catalyst.

As for the calcium methoxide situation, the concentration of biomethanol increases slowly compared to sodium methoxide situation. This may be due to the methoxide ion being used for reaction with PKO rather than exhibiting the production of bioalcohol. The increment percentage is calculated by comparing the value with the value obtained from the product of bioalcohol by reacting the catalyst with the base.

Since the reaction is an autocatalytic reaction, there is a tendency for the non-oxide ion to be converted to the product. Therefore, the increment is necessary to determine the pure bioalcohol produced in the reaction.

Table 19: Summary of bioalcohol concentration rise for calcium methoxide.

For sodium methoxide, the average volume of biomethanol increases proportionally to the amount of catalyst added, while the average volume of bioethanol decreases as the amount of catalyst increases. This is also due to the methoxide ion from the sodium methoxide which helps to exhibit more biomethanol compared to bioethanol. As for calcium methoxide, the average volume of biomethanol increases proportionally to the amount of catalyst added while the average volume of bioethanol increases.

Same as sodium methoxide, the methoxide ion helps expel more biomethanol compared to bioethanol. From Figures 26 and 27, the yield of biomethanol increases proportionally with the increase of catalyst sodium methoxide amount, while the yield of bioethanol decreases as the amount of catalyst increases. On the other hand, for calcium methoxide, the yield of biomethanol increases up to 2.64% from 0.63% when there is no catalyst.

This is caused by the methoxide ion from sodium methoxide which will show more biomethanol compared to bioethanol. The yield of bioethanol can be increased if sodium ethoxide is used as the catalyst, since the ethoxide ion will exhibit more bioethanol compared to biornethanol.

Table 19: Summary of bioalcohol volume rise for catalyst sodium methoxide.

BIOALCOHOL PRODUCTION FROM CATALYST

From Table 22, addition of sodium methoxide will only contribute to changes in the amount of methanol produced and the methanol concentration. The mass and volume of methanol produced increases as the amount of sodium methoxide increases. This section is intended to determine the bioalcohol that can be produced from calcium methoxide.

This is because of the autocatalytic reaction whereby the product of the reaction is the catalyst itself. From Table 24, addition of calcium methoxide will only contribute to changes in the amount of methanol produced and the methanol concentration. The mass and volume of methanol produced increases as the amount of calcium methoxide increases.