Effects of acetic acid addition methods on butyl acetate enzymatic synthesis

Abstract

Butyl acetate is a versatile chemical due to its excellent solvency for polymers, resins, and oils. In this work, the butyl acetate synthesis was studied by the esterification of n-butanol with acetic acid using the commercial immobilized lipase Novozym^® 435. The acetic acid and n-butanol concentrations have to be limited in the enzymatic synthesis of this ester due to the deleterious effects caused by these reagents on the enzyme. Three methods of acetic acid addition (single, stepwise and continuous addition) were investigated to minimize the acid concentration. A significant drop on acid conversion was observed in the presence of a higher concentration of the reagents when single or stepwise acid addition was used. However, a solvent-free system using a continuous addition of acetic acid favored butyl acetate synthesis, reaching a conversion of 84% at 60?°C, employing 5?wt% of enzyme and n-butanol/acetic acid final molar ratio equal to 1/1.     

Comparative study on single-injection and pilot-injection strategies for DI CI engine fuelled with the butanol/diesel blend

ABSTRACT

The present paper discusses a comparative study of single- and pilot-injection strategy fuelled with diesel (i.e. Bu00) and 15% of butanol blend (i.e. Bu15). The effects of pilot injection timing (?33° bTDC to ?73° bTDC) and pilot injection fuel quantity (5–20%) with 15% of butanol blend were carried out numerically using CONVERGE CFD Code. The results show that in single-injection strategy, NOx, CO and soot emissions reduce, whereas UBHC emission increases with the addition of butanol content. In pilot-injection strategy, when the first fuel injection timing is advanced, the peak value of heat release rate (HRR) for the first injected fuel reduces, but marginally improves for the main injected fuel. Increasing the first injection fuel quantity, the HRR of the peak value for first injected fuel increases but the HRR of the peak value for second injected fuel reduces. Minimum ISFC was obtained at 10% of pilot injection fuel quantity and ?53° bTDC of pilot injection timing.     

The role of butanol in the development of sustainable fuel technologies

OVERVIEW: The development of innovative methods to efficiently convert biomass to fuels and industrial chemicals is one of the grand challenges of the current age. n‐Butanol is a versatile and sustainable platform chemical that can be produced from a variety of waste biomass sources. The emergence of new technologies for the production of fuels and chemicals from butanol will allow it to be a significant component of a necessarily dynamic and multifaceted solution to the current global energy crisis. IMPACT: The production of butanol from biomass and its utilization as a precursor to a diverse set of fuel products has the potential to reduce petroleum use worldwide. In concert with other emerging renewable technologies, significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions may be realized. The rapid incorporation of renewables into the world fuel supply may also help to offset predicted increases in transportation fuel prices as the supply of oil declines. APPLICATIONS: Recent work has shown that butanol is a potential gasoline replacement that can also be blended in significant quantities with conventional diesel fuel. These efforts have transitioned to research focused on the development of viable methods for the production of an array of oxygenated and fully saturated jet and diesel fuels from butanol. The technologies discussed in this paper will help drive the commercialization and utilization of a spectrum of butanol based sustainable fuels that can supplement and partially displace conventional petroleum derived fuels. Published 2010 by John Wiley and Sons, Ltd.     

Production of liquid biofuels from renewable resources

This article is an up-to-date review of the literature available on the subject of liquid biofuels. In search of a suitable fuel alternative to fast depleting fossil fuel and oil reserves and in serious consideration of the environmental issues associated with the extensive use of fuels based on petrochemicals, research work is in progress worldwide. Researchers have been re-directing their interests in biomass based fuels, which currently seem to be the only logical alternative for sustainable development in the context of economical and environmental considerations. Renewable bioresources are available globally in the form of residual agricultural biomass and wastes, which can be transformed into liquid biofuels. However, the process of conversion, or chemical transformation, could be very expensive and not worth-while to use for an economical large-scale commercial supply of biofuels. Hence, there is still need for much research to be done for an effective, economical and efficient conversion process. Therefore, this article is written as a broad overview of the subject, and includes information based on the research conducted globally by scientists according to their local socio-cultural and economic situations.     

丁辛醇缩合废水处理技术研究

针对丁辛醇缩合废水进行了实验室探索实验,提出了对该废水进行酸化-萃取-中和-生化处理的工艺,确定了该工艺的处理效果。该处理工艺结合企业实际,克服了目前同类装置存在的不足,技术合理、经济可行。随着该工程的实施,将解决困扰企业多年的丁辛醇高浓度废水的污染问题。     

Conceptual design of an extractive distillation process for the separation of azeotropic mixture of n-butanol-isobutanol-water

In many chemical processes, large amounts of wastewater containing butanol and isobutanol are produced. Given that n-butanol-isobutanol-water can form triple azeotrope, high-purity butanol cannot be recovered from the wastewater by ordinary distillation. To economically and effectively recover butanol from this kind of wastewater, 1,4-butanediol is selected as an extractant to break the formation of the azeotropes, and a doubleeffect extractive distillation process is proposed. The conceptual design of the proposed process is accomplished based on process simulation. With the proposed process, the purity of recovered butanol and water is greater than 99.99 wt%. In comparison with the conventional azeotropic distillation process, economic analysis shows that the operating cost of the proposed process is lower:when the capacity of wastewater treatment is 100 t·h^-1, the total operating cost decreases by 5.385×10⁶ USD per year, and the total annual cost of the new process decreases by 5.249×10⁶ USD per year. In addition, in the extractive distillation system, variable effects on separation purities and cost are more complex than those in the ordinary distillation system. The method and steps to optimize the key variables of the extractive distillation system are also discussed in this paper and can provide reference for similar studies.     

Utilization of palm oil alkyl esters as an additive in ethanol-diesel and butanol-diesel blends

This research focuses on the use of biodiesel as an additive in diesohol preparation. Three types of biodiesel—methyl, ethyl, and butyl esters—were prepared from palm oil through transesterification using a conventional base catalyst. Ethanol is generally used to blend in diesohol; however, butanol is another alcohol which has higher solubility in diesel than ethanol and it can improve the fuel properties of the blends. Therefore, a comparative study of phase stability, the dependence of solubility on temperature (10, 20, and 30 °C), and an evaluation of some basic fuel properties according to the ASTM of diesel-biodiesel-ethanol and diesel-biodiesel-butanol three-component systems at different component concentrations was done. We found that the use of butanol in diesohol could solve the problem of fuel instability at low temperatures because of its higher solubility in diesel fuel. In addition, the fuel properties results indicated that blends containing butanol have properties closer to diesel than those of blends containing ethanol.     

Assessment of energy performance and air pollutant emissions in a diesel engine generator fueled with water-containing ethanol–biodiesel–diesel blend of fuels

Biomass based oxygenated fuels have been identified as possible replacement of fossil fuel due to pollutant emission reduction and decrease in over-reliance on fossil fuel energy. In this study, 4 v% water-containing ethanol was mixed with (65–90%) diesel using (5–30%) biodiesel (BD) and 1 v% butanol as stabilizer and co-solvent respectively. The fuels were tested against those of biodiesel–diesel fuel blends to investigate the effect of addition of water-containing ethanol for their energy efficiencies and pollutant emissions in a diesel-fueled engine generator. Experimental results indicated that the fuel blend mix containing 4 v% of water-containing ethanol, 1 v% butanol and 5–30 v% of biodiesel yielded stable blends after 30 days standing. BD1041 blend of fuel, which composed of 10 v% biodiesel, 4 v% of water-containing ethanol and 1 v% butanol demonstrated −0.45 to 1.6% increase in brake-specific fuel consumption (BSFC, mL kW⁻¹ h⁻¹) as compared to conventional diesel. The better engine performance of BD1041 was as a result of complete combustion, and lower reaction temperature based on the water cooling effect, which reduced emissions to 2.8–6.0% for NO_x, 12.6–23.7% particulate matter (PM), 20.4–23.8% total polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and 30.8–42.9% total BaPeq between idle mode and 3.2 kW power output of the diesel engine generator. The study indicated that blending diesel with water-containing ethanol could achieve the goal of more green sustainability.     

A multicriteria comparison of utilizing sugar cane bagasse for methanol to gasoline and butanol production

The present study makes a consistent and comparative assessment of the overall exergy, financial and environmental efficiencies of two biomass-to-fuels (utilised in internal combustion engines with spark ignition) conversion options and based on this result, gives a recommendation as to which of the options assessed is most desirable. These options are methanol to gasoline (MTG) and biochemical butanol, while as feedstock the solid residue of sugar cane, bagasse, was considered. For the work presented in this study, a base case scenario has first been developed for each pathway by employing either Aspen Plus or SuperPro Designer (as simulators) to perform mass and energy balance calculations while Matlab software has been used for modelling the reaction kinetics of each process. Based on the simulations, thermodynamic (exergy analysis), economic (financial and risk analysis) and environmental (CO₂ emissions) evaluations were carried out. Afterwards, sensitivity analyses have been performed in order to define the key parameters of each conversion route. Exergy and economic analysis favour the gasoline production while butanol produces less CO₂ emissions. The study concludes with multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) where each process is issued a score according to the investigated criteria. This makes it possible for the investigated procedures to be compared on the same basis. According to this analysis, the production of gasoline achieves a higher overall score than butanol production, i.e. 97% and 90% respectively.