Vortex fluidic mediated direct transesterification of wet microalgae biomass to biodiesel

Eko K Sitepu; Kendall Corbin; Xuan Luo; Scott J Pye; Youhong Tang; Sophie C Leterme; Kirsten Heimann; Colin L Raston; Wei Zhang

doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2018.06.103

Vortex fluidic mediated direct transesterification of wet microalgae biomass to biodiesel

Bioresour Technol. 2018 Oct:266:488-497. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2018.06.103. Epub 2018 Jul 5.

Authors

Eko K Sitepu¹, Kendall Corbin², Xuan Luo³, Scott J Pye⁴, Youhong Tang⁴, Sophie C Leterme⁵, Kirsten Heimann³, Colin L Raston⁴, Wei Zhang³

Affiliations

¹ Centre for Marine Bioproducts Development, Flinders University, South Australia 5042, Australia; Medical Biotechnology, College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University, South Australia 5042, Australia. Electronic address: site0003@flinders.edu.au.
² Centre for Marine Bioproducts Development, Flinders University, South Australia 5042, Australia; Medical Biotechnology, College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University, South Australia 5042, Australia; Institute for NanoScale Science and Technology, College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University, South Australia 5042, Australia.
³ Centre for Marine Bioproducts Development, Flinders University, South Australia 5042, Australia; Medical Biotechnology, College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University, South Australia 5042, Australia.
⁴ Institute for NanoScale Science and Technology, College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University, South Australia 5042, Australia; College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University, South Australia 5042, Australia.
⁵ College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University, South Australia 5042, Australia.

PMID: 29990765
DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2018.06.103

Abstract

A bottleneck in the production of biodiesel from microalgae is the dewatering and lipid extraction process which is the dominant energy penalty and cost. A novel biodiesel production platform based on vortex fluidic device (VFD)-assisted direct transesterification (DT) of wet microalgal biomass of Chloroparva pannonica was developed and evaluated. Fatty acid extraction and fatty acid to FAME conversion efficiencies were used at different parameter settings to evaluate performance of the processing technology in confined and continuous mode. A response surface method based on Box-Behnken experimental design was used to determine the effects of water content, the ratio of biomass to methanol and residence time in the VFD. Average extraction efficiencies were 41% and conversion efficiencies >90% with the processing technology showing a broad tolerance to parameter settings. The findings suggest that VFD-assisted DT is a simple and effective way to produce biodiesel directly from wet microalgae biomass at room temperature.

Keywords: Biodiesel; Thin film; Vortex fluid device; Wet microalgae.

MeSH terms

Biofuels*
Biomass
Esterification
Lipids
Methanol
Microalgae*

Substances

Biofuels
Lipids
Methanol