Abstract:
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By 2030, the world’s population is expected to reach 8 billion, and as the population
grows, more energy is required to produce the basic needs of people. New sources of
energy are needed, an energy that is more practical to use in the same way that it is
safer, renewable, available and of course affordable. Renewable energy resources
can be classified as; solar energy, wind energy, water power (hydropower,
geothermal energy, wave energy), biomass energy and hydrogen energy. From these
resources, biomass is a renewable, environmentally friendly strategic energy
resource, which can be produced every where and has influence on socio-economic
development, and also can be a resource for electricity and transportation fuels
production. From the biomass energy technologies, biodiesel is one of the candidates
of this needed energy because of its abundance and potential source in the country.
Biodiesel is a clean-burning diesel replacement fuel that can be used in
compression-ignition engines, and which is manufactured from virgin vegetable oils,
animal fats, algaes, and waste cooking oils through the process of transesterification
reaction. For industrial-scale biodiesel production around the world, canola oil,
sunflower oil, soybean oil and used cooking oil are used as an oil feedstock,
methanol is used as an alcohol and alkaline catalysts (sodium or potassium
hydroxide) are used as catalyst choices. In this project, the biodiesel
transesterification production process in large-scale of a plant with an annual
production of 8.000 tonnes of this biofuel was studied, using canola oil, methanol
and sodium hydroxide as the main substances. The flowsheet of the process was
designed and the mass balance was done. Once this step was finished, the
economical assessment of two plants with the same characteristics as the one
designed, one in Spain and the other one in Turkey, was carried out. Results showed
that in both countries a solution is needed in order to make the process profitable:
cheaper feedstocks, new technologies, or new policies, incentives, subsidies or tariffs
from the government. |