glycerol esterification technology EN14214 biodiesel production machine

Technology Introduction

Currently the biodiesel technology we adopt and design for your company is glycerinum esterification technology.   

This treatment technology is newly developed by our company, which can meet high quality standards of biodiesel and have many advantages such as fast reaction speed, high conversion rate, vitriol not required to be catalyst,sulphur controlled below 10ppm, small corrosivity to equipments, zero waste water discharge and others. The research of this technology changed the record of using heterogeneouscatalyst in old technologies,breaking the history of only having national standard biodiesel but no European standard biodiesel.

Production technology is divided into five steps: pretreatment, esterification, interesterification, biodiesel refining and glycerinum refining. 

(1)Pretreatment

There are lots of water and impurity in raw material oil, so before esterification reaction we must treat raw material oil by rough filtration, refined filtration and falling film type drying to get standard oil of unified physical properties.

(2)Esterification Reaction  

Put standard raw material oil, glycerinum and catalyst into esterification reactor according to certain percentage and flow rate and then open heating equipment and adjust to required technology parameters, these materials will react 1-3 hours under vacuum condition and timely discharge water generated during reaction process from the system. Put reaction product into esterification settling tank after sampling and inspection qualified. Esterification reaction is mainly to generate triglyceride and water by reaction of free fatty acid and glycerinum, meanwhile generating slight monoglycerides and diacylglycerol. 

(3)Interesterification

Put a certain amount of products generated by esterification reaction, methyl alcohol and catalyst into interesterification tubular reactor and adjust feeding parameters, and then open heating equipment and tune to required technology parameters, we can take samples in different places during reaction process. After sampling and inspection qualified, the equipment can discharge products continuously and can be monitored on-line. We should recycle methyl alcohol from reaction products.Steamed methyl alcohol can directly flow into methyl alcohol storage tank after condensation by condenser. Interesterification is primarily reaction of triglyceride and methyl alcohol, generating lots of methyl ester and glycerinum as well as some monoglyceride and diglyceride. After reaction the products will be discharged into temporary storage tank for settling separation. 

Advantages of turbulent interactive tubular reactor: this equipment realizes the continuous production of esterification and interesterification, improving the automatic level of production technology; tubular or tower-type reactor of special structure greatly strengthens the mass transfer of incompatible system between grease and methyl alcohol, and thoroughly changes traditional instability problems of kettle type reaction, getting unified quality standard products and significantly reducing reaction time. It can fully realize continuous reaction under the low temperature and atmospheric pressure and has many advantages such as high conversion rate, convenient installation, low energy consumption, reaction speed to be controlled on line and others.       

(4)Biodiesel Refining

Biodiesel distillation equipment is multiple-type self-shunt reduced pressure distillation device. Distillation system adopts continuous rectification technology heating by conduction oil and treat Coarse methyl ester by distillation/rectification under vacuum condition. Technology procedure is as below: firstly,cold materials exchanges heat and are preheated with tower gas phase composition; secondly, the heated materials enter into heater and are heated until temperature reaching technology requirements, and then enter into tower kettle and start distillation or rectification ( rectification must be controlled reflux ratio); thirdly,as for the gas phase materials on the top of tower, the main components after heat exchange and condensation enter into receiving tank, while light components flow into another receiving tank after condensation by top tower condenser under certain technology condition; the heavy components enter into reboiler and continue to be heated, and the products separated by heated materials in deputy tower flow into heavy component receiving tank. The advantages are as below. Combined distallation system, rectification system and separation system reduce the residence time of biodiesel staying in the equipment, guaranteeing color of biodiesel; cold materials firstly exchange heat with finished products and enter into distallition column after being heated,fully considering utilization of secondary thermal energy and greatly saving production costs; deodorization and main products are separated in one combination tower; up-to-standard stink gases can be discharged after cleared up by microorganism from AO pool after wast water treatment, which not only reduces heat waste, but also saves equipment investment and broadens operation flexibility, bringing big convenience  to production operation.

(5)Glycerinum Refining

As there are part of methanol and a little soap in the by-product glycerinum after interesterification,in avoid of the loss of methanol which will enter into the esterification kettle with the glycerinum during cyclic utilization, so dealcoholization  must be done before cyclic utilization. Firstly, drawing the glycerinum which expelled from the interesterification sedimentation into the Glassed Steel Reactor , to adjust it to be neutral or faintly acid. Then the glycerinum enter into Glycerinum Setting Tank to be desalted. Thirdly the glycerinum enter into the Distillation column to be dehydrated , dealcoholized and refined. Sample inspection is the last step, the glycerinum will enter into Glycerinum Receiving Tank to be reused if it can meet the standards.