Oil Extraction From Microalgae For Biodiesel Production

Ronald Halim , Brendan Gladman, Michael K. Danquah, Paul A.Webley Bioresource technology(2010):102:1:178-185

VISHNUVARDHAN.M 11BT60R15

INTRODUCTION
The rate of depletion of fossil fuels and the effect of greenhouse gas emissions on global climate change are creating much interest in biodiesel. Commercial production of biodiesel or fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) usually involves alkaline-catalysed transesterification of triglycerides found in oilseed crops with ethanol.

Escalating demand for these crops as a food source coupled with the finite availability of arable land
makes their cultivation for biofuels unsustainable. Microalgae as a prominent alternative source. Supercritical carbon dioxide (SCCO2) extraction.

MATERIALS
10 wt% H2SO4 in methanol and 25 wt% KCH3O in methanol

n-Hexane
Isopropanol Methanol

Microalgae strain: Chlorococcum sp.

Modified F medium: 150.0 mg/L NaNO3, 22.7 mg/L Na2SiO35H2O, 11.3 mg/L NaH2PO42H2O, 9.0 mg/L C6H8O7xFe, 9.0 mg/L C6H8O7, 0.360 mg/L MnCl24H2O, 0.044 mg/L ZnSO47H2O, 0.022 mg/L CoCl26H2O, 0.020 mg/L CuSO45H2O, 0.013 mg/L Na2MoO42H2O, Trace vitamin B12, biotin, and thiamine

METHODS
Cultivation of Microalgae

Dewatering
Extraction pre-treatment Supercritical CO2 lipid extraction Hexane lipid extraction - Static hexane lipid extraction. Dynamic hexane lipid extraction.

Fatty acid methylation. Analytical methods

fig :Schematic of SCCO2 extraction unit

Mass transfer modelling for SCCO2 extraction from dried microalgae

Mass transfer behaviour of lipid molecules during SCCO2 extraction, the following kinetic model was used: dme/dt = K(ms,t-m*s,t) where me = lipid yield at time t t = extraction time (min) k = lipid mass transfer coefficient from the microalgal cells into scco2 ms,t= amount of extractable intracellular lipid that remains unextracted at time t
m*s,t =amount of unextracted intracellular lipid when there is equilibrium in the lipid concentration between the microalgal cells and the SCCO2. since fresh SCCO2 was continuously swept across the extraction vessel, the equilibrium concentration of lipid molecules m*s,t theoretically approaches to 0. dme/dt =k(ms,t-0) =k ms,t

Continued. Since ms,t is equal to the difference between the original amount of extractable intracellular lipid, ms,0 and the amount of lipids that have been extracted at time t is me.. dme=k(ms,o-me) Above eq. is a first-order linear ODE. Together with the initial condition me (t = 0) = 0, it can be solved to give... me=ms,0(1-e-kt)

Results And Discussions:

Effects of extraction time and temperature:
Lipid extractions were conducted for 80 min at 60 and 80 C. The pressure was constant at 30 MPa and 20 g of dried microalgal powder was used in each experiment.
fig :effect of temp& time on scco2 extraction of lipids

fig: Effect of pressure during SCCO2 extraction on lipid yield

Effect of pressure and dielectric constant :

Fig: Comparison with dynamic hexane lipid extraction

Conclusions
For SCCO2 extraction, lipid yield was found to decrease with temperature and to increase with pressure. No significant differences were found in the FAME compositions of lipid extracts obtained under different SCCO2 extraction parameters. lipid mass transfer coefficient (k) to increase with solvent polarity. Soxhlet extraction using hexane was found to be significantly less efficient than SCCO2 extraction. The lipid yield was found to be 0.058 g.lipid extract/g.dried micro algae.

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