Improvement of glycerin removal from crude biodiesel through the application of a sulfonated polymeric adsorbent material

Abstract

The proposal of suitable processes for glycerin removal from crude biodiesel is an important task for making the overall biodiesel production process environmentally friendly and economically viable. In this article, we propose a dry purification process for biodiesel treatment with different polymeric materials [chitosan, cellulose acetate, poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA), and sulfonated PVA]. Except for pure PVA, all of the proposed materials were able to reduce the free glycerin content of crude biodiesel from 0.03 wt % to values lower than 0.02 wt %. When the PVA was sulfonated, the glycerin removal increased from 12 to 82% compared that of pure PVA. The glycerin content in the biodiesel sample treated with sulfonated PVA was 0.0055 wt %. Mid‐IR spectrometric analysis showed that the sulfonation of PVA increased the band due to HOH stretching vibrations; this enabled greater hydrogen bonding between glycerol and the SO3 groups of the sulfonated adsorbent. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2017, 134, 45330.

The integrity of synthetic magnesium silicate in charged compounds

“…The synthetic magnesium silicate, Magnesol, is used broadly in the biodiesel industry due to its adsorptive properties 12 . The active sites formed from the free silonal groups on the surface of magnesium silicate make it an excellent adsorbent 13 resulting in extensive studies on its use as an adsorbent [13][14][15][16] , especially for used oils 15,[17][18][19][20][21] and wastewater treatment [22][23][24][25][26][27][28] . The adsorption properties are also exploited in chromatography, where synthetic magnesium silicate, sold as Florisil, is used widely in analytical and preparative chromatography applications [29][30][31][32][33] .…”