Scaling up extractive deacidification of waste cooking oil

Biodiesel produced from waste feedstocks can play a significant role in fighting climate change, improperly disposed waste and growing energy demand. Waste feedstocks such as used cooking oil have a great potential for energy production. However, they often have to be purified from free fatty acids prior to biodiesel production. Extractive deacidification with deep eutectic solvents is a promising alternative to conventional purification methods. To evaluate the process of extractive deacidification of waste cooking oil, a full set of physical, hydrodynamic and kinetic data were experimentally determined on a laboratory scale. Hydrodynamic and kinetic experiments were performed in three geometrically similar jacketed agitated vessels. Vessels were equipped with axial flow impeller (four pitched blade impeller). Physical properties (density, viscosity and surface tension) were experimentally determined. Preliminary hydrodynamic experiments involved several model systems without mass transfer. As a result, correlation between power number and Reynolds number as well as scale-up criterion was developed. Obtained dependencies were correlated with the physical properties. Mixing intensity for achieving complete dispersion was determined. Second stage of investigation involved two sets of experiments, hydrodynamic and kinetic, with interphase mass transfer (the extraction of free fatty acids from waste cooking oil with deep eutectic solvent, potassium carbonate:ethylene glycol, 1:10). Obtained results enabled understanding interphase mass transfer and prediction of mass transfer coefficient from the derived dimensionless correlations. The values of volumetric mass transfer coefficients were smaller for the dispersed phase, indicating that the prevailing mass transfer resistance was within the droplets. The working hypothesis was that the same process result should be achieved at the same dispersion rate, and that hypothesis was confirmed – at all scales extraction efficiency was 97.9 ± 0.1%.