1. Application of Reactive Distillation Process in Alternative Energy Production
Being a Paper Presented
at the
3rd Annual Conference of the School of Sciences, Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria By
Dr. A. Giwa1*, Mr. S. C. Nwambuonwo2, and Dr. (Mrs.) S. O. Giwa3
1*,2Chemical and Petroleum Engineering Department, Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State, Nigeria
3Chemical Engineering Department, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi, Nigeria
July, 2015

2. OUTLINE Theoretical Background and Literature Review
Modeling and Simulation Study
Experimental Study
Conclusion
References

3. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE REVIEW
Alternative Energy
Alternative energy is any energy source that can be used to replace fossil fuel.
It is produced or recovered without the undesirable consequences inherent in fossil fuel use, particularly high carbon dioxide emissions (greenhouse gas), which is an important factor in global warming.

4. Alternative Energy Contd.
Examples of alternative energy include biomass energy, wind energy, solar energy, geothermal energy, and hydroelectric energy sources.

5. Biomass
Biomass is a biological material derived from living, or recently living organisms. It most often refers to plants or plant-based materials, which is not used for food or feed. As an energy source, biomass can either be used directly via combustion to produce heat, or indirectly after converting it to various forms of biofuel.

6. Biomass Contd.
In particular, biomass can be converted to usable forms of energy like methane gas or transportation fuels like ethanol and biodiesel.

7. Biodiesel
Biodiesel, as an alternative fuel, can be directly used to replace petroleum diesel without modifying diesel engines since their properties, e.g., specific gravity, cetane number, viscosity, cloud point, and flash point, are similar (Simasatitkul et al., 2011).

8. Biodiesel Contd.
It is a very good environmental friendly fuel because it can be derived from renewable domestic resources, reduces carbon dioxide emissions by about 78%, when compared to diesel fuel on lifecycle basis, and is nontoxic and biodegradable (Wang et al., 2004, Jaya and Ethirajulu, 2011).

9. Biodiesel Contd.
According to Kusmiyati and Sugiharto (2010), oleic acid could be used to produce biodiesel using esterification reaction involving alcohol such as methanol, ethanol, etc. employing a batch reactor (Omota et al., 2003).

10. Biodiesel Contd.
However, the production of biodiesel in the reactor has many issues due to low conversion. Therefore, an advanced technology, which is known as reactive distillation process (Kusmiyati and Sugiharto, 2010) is being developed for this process.

11. Reactive Distillation
Reactive distillation is a process that allows the occurrence of chemical reaction and separation simultaneously in a single unit (Giwa and Karacan, 2012; Giwa, 2013; Giwa and Giwa, 2015) using the advantages of equilibrium reaction together with distillation to enhance conversion (Taylor and Krishna, 2000; Giwa, 2012; Giwa and Giwa, 2015).

12. Reactive Distillation Contd.
It has a lot of advantages, which include low reduced investment and operating costs as a result of increased yield (Pérez-Correa et al., 2008; Giwa and Giwa, 2015), improved selectivity, low energy consumption, ability to carry out difficult separations and avoidance of azeotropes (Jana and Adari, 2009; Giwa, 2012; Giwa and Giwa, 2012; Giwa and Giwa, 2015).

13. Reactive Distillation Contd.
Figure 1. Some Chemical Engineering process units

14. Reactive Distillation Contd.
Figure 2. Classical process

15. Reactive Distillation Contd.
Figure 3. Integrated process

16. Reactive Distillation Contd.
Figure 4. Reactive distillation process

17. MODELING AND SIMULATION STUDY
Aspen, 2001
Figure 5. Aspen PLUS batch reactive distillation process model

18. Chemical Equation of the Reaction
(1)

19. Standard and total reflux
Operating Parameters
Table 1. Parameters used for the simulation of the Aspen PLUS reactive distillation process
Parameter
Value
 Feed condition
Temperature (oC) 25
Pressure 1
Feed Composition
Mole flow (kmol/hr)
Oleic acid 45
Methanol
Methyl oleate
Water
Property method and model
Base method
UNIFAC
Property method
Column setup
Number of stages 7
Valid phases
Vapour-Liquid
Main accumulator
Standard
Column options
Operation step type
Standard and total reflux
Condenser type
Total
Initial charge
Time (hr)
Operating specifications
Reflux ratio 3
Pot duty (MJ/hr)
1393
Stop specification
Specification type
Time
Stop value (sec)
7200
Reaction stage
7 (bottom stage)
Equilibrium parameters
Reacting phase
Liquid
Keq basis
Molarity

20. Results and Discussion
Table 2. Aspen PLUS process model output (product) composition
Component
Mole fraction
Oleic acid (Fatty acid)
0.077
Methanol (Alcohol)
0.005
Methyl oleate (FAME - Biodiesel)
0.584
Water (By-product)
0.334

21. EXPERIMENTAL STUDY
Figure 6. Experimental setup of a batch reactive distillation column in Chem. and Pet. Eng. Lab. of ABUAD

22. Experimental Results
Table 3. Properties of the experimentally produced biodiesel
Parameter
Experimental value
Standard value
Density (g/cm3)
0.89
0.88
Cloud point (oC) -5
-3 to 12
Flash point (oC)
155
130 to 170

23. Density (g/cm3) at room temperature
Comparison of Results
Table 4. Densities of biodiesel output samples
Source
Density (g/cm3) at room temperature
Literature
0.88
Aspen PLUS
0.87
Experimental
0.89

24. CONCLUSION
Owing to the fact that the results obtained from the experiment carried out and that of the simulation were found to be in good agreement with each other and with the standard, it has been discovered both theoretically and experimentally that reactive distillation process can be successfully used to implement biodiesel production.

25. REFERENCES
Aspen. (2001). Aspen PLUS Version Aspen Technology, USA.
Giwa, A. (2012). Steady-State Modeling of n-Butyl Acetate Transesterification Process Using Aspen PLUS: Conventional versus Integrated. ARPN Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 7(12),
Giwa, A. (2013). Sensitivity Analysis of ETBE Production Process Using Aspen PLUS. International Journal of Advanced Scientific and Technical Research, 3(1),

26. References Contd.
Giwa, A. and Giwa, S.O. (2015). Cascade-Forward Neural Network Modelling of a Biodiesel Reactive Distillation Process. International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, 6(5),
Giwa, A. and Karacan, S. (2012). Decoupling PID Control of a Reactive Packed Distillation Column. International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology, 1(6),
Jana, A.K., and Adari, P.V.R.K. (2009). Nonlinear State Estimation and Control of a Batch Reactive Distillation. Chemical Engineering Journal, 150,

27. References Contd.
Jaya, N., and Ethirajulu, E. (2011). Kinetic Modeling of Transesterfication Reaction for Biodiesel Production Using Heterogeneous Catalyst. International Journal of Engineering Science and Technology (IJEST), 3(4),
Kusmiyati, K., and Sugiharto, A. (2010). Production of Biodiesel from Oleic Acid and Methanol by Reactive Distillation. Bulletin of Chemical Reaction Engineering & Catalysis, 5 (1), 2010, 1-6.
Omota, F., Dimian, A.C., and Bliek, A. (2003). Fatty Acid Esterification by Reactive Distillation: Part 2- Kinetics-Based Design for Sulphated Zirconia Catalysts. Chemical Engineering Science, 58,

28. References Contd.
Pérez-Correa, S., González, P. and Alvarez, J. (2008). On-Line Optimizing Control for a Class of Batch Reactive Distillation Columns. Proceedings of the 17th World Congress of the International Federation of Automatic Control, Seoul, Korea,
Simasatitkul, L., Siricharnsakunchai, P., Patcharavorachot, Y., Assabumrungrat, S., and Arpornwichanop, A. (2011). Reactive Distillation for Biodiesel Production from Soybean Oil. Korean Journal of Chemical Eng., 28(3),

29. References Contd.
Taylor R. and Krishna R. (2000). Modelling Reactive Distillation, Review. Chemical Engineering Science, 55,
Wang, S., Ma, X., Gong, J., Yang, X., Guo, H., and Xu, G. (2004). Transesterification of Dimethyl Oxalate with Phenol under SnO2/SiO2 Catalysts. Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research, 43,

30. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Special thanks go to Aare Afe Babalola, LL.B, FFPA, FNIALS, FCIArb, LL.D, SAN, OFR, CON. – The Founder and President, and the Management of Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State, Nigeria for providing the equipment and a very conducive environment that enabled us to carry out this research.

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