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Production of Lactic Acid from Glycerol in Microchannel Reactors in the Presence of Copper-Based Catalysts

Jalal Sahandi, Pooya | 2020

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  1. Type of Document: M.Sc. Thesis
  2. Language: Farsi
  3. Document No: 53019 (06)
  4. University: Sharif University of Technology
  5. Department: Chemical and Petroleum Engineering
  6. Advisor(s): Kazemeini, Mohammad; Sadjadi, Samaheh
  7. Abstract:
  8. Hand in hand with the flourish of the biodiesel industries, glycerol has turned into an abundant waste chemical posing obstacles to their large-scale implementation. Devising measures for efficient transformation of glycerol into value added products is a promising alternative to its large-scale disposal into the nature that would also increase the competitiveness of biodiesel fuels. In this study, production of lactic acid (LA) as a valuable chemical with wide applicability is studied in a continuous process with glycerol as a cheap and convenient feedstock. In this regard, the state-of-the-art approaches in catalytic conversion of glycerol to LA are reviewed. A catalytic method using heterogenic Cu nanoparticles in a basic environment is then investigated in a tubular microreactor with 2 m length and 0.5 mm diameter and simulated with the computational fluid dynamics package COMSOL Multiphysis. By implementing precise reaction pathways and taking operational considerations into account, momentum, diffusion-convection, and energy equations are simultaneously solved and the distribution of relevant parameters are calculated using thermodynamic and physicochemical properties. Furthermore, numerous micromixer designs are proposed where a J-type geometry is found to be the most successful in terms of mixing efficiency. The non-ideal behavior of the reaction fluid is studied with dispersion model. Influence of various parameters, including the inlet velocity, initial concentration of glycerol, ratio of hydroxyl ion to glycerol, concentration of the Cu catalyst, and inlet temperature in constant and variable temperature processes are also discussed
  9. Keywords:
  10. Glycerol ; Microreactor ; Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) ; Copper Nanoparticles ; Catalytic Reforming ; Lactic Acid

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