Experimental Investigation and Thermodynamic Modeling of Glycerin/Methanol/Organic Solvent Systems

Abstract

Glycerin is an important by-product in biodiesel production. To increase its quality to be suitable for use it in other operations, e.g., the pharmaceutical industry, it needs to be purified. Therefore, the purification of glycerin by liquid-liquid extraction of methanol using different solvents was investigated. It was shown that, in terms of separation, petroleum ether was more effective than toluene and toluene was more effective than n-butanol. In addition to the experimental investigations, the NRTL and UNIQUAC thermodynamic models were used to predict the compositions of ternary mixtures of glycerin + methanol + organic solvent in glycerin-rich and organic solvent-rich phases. The results showed the high accuracy of the presented models and their consistency with the measured data.

Thermodynamic Modeling of Liquid-Liquid Equilibrium in Ternary Systems with Biodiesel and Isolated Ester (Methyl Palmitate)

“…Applying the Othmer-Tobias and Hand thermodynamic models to the experimental data obtained for the systems analyzed proved to be reliable and consistent, since they exhibited correlation coefficients above 0.97 (Table 4). Mousavi et al [47] reported that the Othmer-Tobias and Hand correlations consistently represented the experimental equilibrium data of the systems containing glycerol + methanol + organic solvents.…”

Experimental Study of Liquid–Liquid Equilibrium and Thermodynamic Modeling for Systems Containing Alcohols + Biodiesel + Diesel

“…The numerous studies that have reported the LLE data of biofuels only investigated the separation processes in biodiesel production. − Liquid–liquid equilibrium research aimed at proposing new fuel formulations is scarce in the literature. Thus, the aim of the present study focused on the use of biodiesel as an additive to stabilize alcohols in diesel blends: in other words, to investigate the miscibility of the ternary systems methanol + biodiesel + diesel, ethanol + biodiesel + diesel, and 1-butanol + biodiesel + diesel and propose new fuel formulations for diesel engines.…”