Sharif Digital Repository

Clean and Renewable energies are one of the most important part of global policy. In order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions mostly from fossil fuels, many countries have introduced biofuels to avoid depletion of fossil fuels and decrease the pollution. In Iran, large dependency on crude oil and natural gas resources cause barriers for utilization of biofuels. The country has plenty of biomass resources that may guide national decision makers toward biofuels.In this study, biomass supply chain to produce biofuel is studied to reach sustainability. The model enables us to depict the optimal path to reach the economic, environmental, and social sustainability through the whole supply chain.... 

In a single chemical plant, the operation of each unit operation is not independent of each other. In the other hand, the main operations are performed in reactors following by several separation steps including distillation and purification units. The total energy requirements are sullied by the heat exchanger networks. The performance of these systems is improved by integration and intensification of the reactor and distillation column in a single unit. The main objective of the present work is to provide an effective design approach to intensify the reactor and distillation column. In a reactive distillation column, the reaction and separation is done in a single unit. Increasing... 

The aim of this project is to inventigate and synthesize CaO-based nanocatalysts with metal promoters of magnesium and lithium by wet impregnation and coprecipitation methods, which are used in the transesterification reaction of canola oil and methanol. Sections of thesis include review of before researches , synthesis of nanocatalysts, catalyst characterization tests,and investigation of reaction under optimal conditions. In wet impregnation method, nanocatalysts were made with 5% by weight of lithium-magnesium on the basis of CaO and with different weight percentages of these two elements. In the co-precipitation method , catalysts with a combined base of calcium oxide/magnesium oxide ... 

The aim of this project is to fabricate and study heterogeneous CaO-based nanocatalysts with lithium and zinc enhancers for the esterification reaction of rapeseed oil and methanol to produce biodiesel as a renewable and alternative fuel for fossil fuels. Is. First, Zn-Li / CaO catalysts with weight ratio Li: Zn: CaO, 2: 2: 7 and by combining different percentages of Li100% promoter, Li75% -Zn25%, Li50% -Zn50%, Li25% -Zn75%, 100% Zn were made on the basis of CaO by wet inoculation. Characterization tests to evaluate the structure and characterization such as X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (EDX) spectroscopy, Bruner-Emmett-Teller... 

The aim of this study is developing and investigating heterogeneous catalysts based on natural calcite for the transesterification of canola oil and methanol in order to produce biodiesel as a renewable and alternative fuel for fossil fuels. At first calcite was calcined at high temperature to decompose calcium carbonate to calcium oxide. Afterward, Mg-Zr/CaO catalysts were prepared with mass ratio of 2:1 Mg:Zr and different weight percent(2.5, 5,7.5 and 10 wt%) on calcite supported by impregnation method. In order to characterized synthesized catalysts used different analysis such as energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy, powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy... 

The gradual depletion of the resources of fossil fuels, as well as the instability of their price in addition to the necessity of mitigation of hazardous air pollutants, are the chief reasons to increase the use of renewable sources. Biodiesel, as one of the best alternatives, can mitigate the emission of air pollutants resulting from fuel combustion. However, using raw biodiesel is not economically viable due to its lower quality in comparison with diesel. In this study, the role of nanoparticles in the improvement of biodiesel characteristics has been investigated. Firstly, biodiesel was produced from waste cooking oil (WCO) using the transesterification reaction, and then ceria and... 

This project evaluates the feasibility of using waste salmon fish bones as the reusable and low cost solid catalyst support for synthesis of biodiesel from waste sunflower oil via transestrification method. Calcinated waste fish bone derived hydroxyapatite (HAP) was employed as the supporter for KOH & K2CO3 to prepare an efficient solid base catalyst for biodiesel production. The catalyst were characterized by SEM-EDS, XRD, FTIR, BET, TGA, ICP. The effects of catalyst preparation conditions (such as fish bone and KOH or K2CO3 calcination temperature, loading of KOH or K2CO3 on the support), reaction conditions (such as reaction time, methanol/oil molar ratio, reaction temperature and... 

This study aims at synthesizing and investigating of heterogeneous catalysts for biodiesel production as an alternative to fossil fuel with a transesterification reaction of sunflower oil and methanol. Three main sections of this thesis concern the synthesis of clay base catalyst, characterization analysis, and investigation of the transesterification reaction under different conditions. Talc clay base catalyst impregnated with a 40 wt.% of K2CO3 as active and stable catalysts to study the transesterification reaction of sunflower oil and methanol for biodiesel production. Synthesized catalysts have been characterized by power X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM),... 

The aim of this project is to investigate and synthesize CaO-based nanocatalysts derived from chicken eggshell calcination with alkali metals and sodium-potassium compounds promoters used in the transesterification reaction of canola oil and methanol. Sections of this thesis include the synthesis of nanocatalysts, catalyst characterization tests, and investigation of reaction under optimal conditions. Two groups of catalysts containing different weight percentages of alkali metals based on CaO and 1 %wt sodium-potassium based on CaO with different weight percentages of these two elements were synthesized by wet impregnation method and used in the reaction under optimum condition. Catalyst... 

The purpose of this study is to study heterogeneous nanocatalysts for the production of biofuels by the method of exchange of styrene using oil and methanol as a fossil fuel alternative. Preparation of nanocatalysts, performing characteristic tests and investigating the reaction in different operating conditions in the batch reactor has already been studied. Therefore, in this study, the production of biodiesel fuel using the trans-esterification of canola oil with nanocatalysts in the micro-reactor reactor will be discussed. Previously, a heterogeneous catalyst (lithium based on calcium-lanthanum) was constructed using a co-incineration method and a wet inoculum, and as active and stable... 

Nowadays, one of the most basic human problem is how to manage energy resources for sustainable development and how to deal with problems caused by growing energy consumption. Various scenarios are being discussd that the most important of them can be considered research on finding alternative energy sources that are renewable and do not have common pollution. Thus, according to researches carried out until now, using sources such as wind, water, solar biomass, etc. have been proposed. However, due to problems in the development of each of these sources, biomass as the primary option has been introduced. because biomass has several subsidiaries, research shows microalgaes (as a subset) are... 

Biodiesel has drawn the attention of many researches to itself as a replacing source for crude oil, recently. Transesterification is one of the most popular methods used for biodiesel production. Enzyme transesterification is a more simple method in comparison with acidic or basic transesterification. However, the high price and low yield of enzyme transesterification has caused many obstacles in its application. Enzyme engineering has gained much attention as a way to improve enzyme performance. In this thesis, biodiesel production by a native enzyme named Bacillus thermocatenulatus, and two engineered-enzymes is studied. First, effective parameters and variables in biodiesel production by... 

In this research, experimental study and modeling of biodiesel production process from microalgae has been investigated. First, to have a biomass with suitable lipid content, a novel two-step process based on cultivation under nutrient sufficient followed by cultivation under nitrogen starvation condition has been proposed. Then the effect of using different organic and inorganic carbon sources on this process has been investigated which the results indicated that sodium acetate had a better performance compare to other carbon sources. In the following, the effect of using different light regimes on growth rate, lipid content and fatty acid composition have been investigated. Experimental... 

Reduction in the oil reserves level and the increasing of fossil fuel prices and GHG has led to growing value of attention to biodiesel. Reserves of fossil fuels are running out and should have proper alternative for them. Environmental benign and renewable properties of biodiesel make it consider suitable candidate to replace fossil fuels.
In this study, continuous production of biodiesel and optimization of important and influential parameters have been investigated. The method is concluded of trans esterification of soya oil with methanol as feed in presence of homogeneous catalyst of NaOH. The reactor was simple with high efficiency and low operational and investment cost. The... 

In the current work, jatropha oil was studied in the hetrogenious solid catalytic transesterfication reaction. For this perpous, KOH/CNT catalyst which was prepared by dry impregnation method was used. SEM, XRD and TGA were applied for the catalyst characterization. The results showed that for the KOH/CNT catalyst, by increasing the loading of KOH, the activity of the catalyst increased and the most active catalyst was prepared by 20% loading of KOH. The optimum conditions for transesterfication reaction in the percense of this catalyst were: 4.7% catalyst weigth and the 24.5 molar ratio of methanol to oil and also the reaction time of 2 houres which the rate of reaction at this time is... 

The experimental investigation of biodiesel production stages from microalgae especially biomass production stage was conducted in this thesis. The optimal rate of biomass productivity was determined.
A photobioreactor was designed and constructed to cultivate microalgae C. Vulgaris according to researchers’ works and obtained results in this study. The process parameters were examined and the optimal parameters were obtained according to the necessary tests which were carried out.
According to the results, the optimal condition for growing of microalgae was obtained with aeration of 6 lit/min with 3% CO2, and CO2 injection regime of 45 sec. injection and 3 min. of stoppage. A rapid... 

The experimental investigation of biodiesel production stages from microalgae especially lipid extraction stage was conducted in this thesis. The optimal rate of biomass productivity and optimal method in lipid extraction for biodiesel production was determined.
A photobioreactor was designed and constructed to cultivate microalgae C. Vulgaris according to researchers’ works and obtained results in this study. The process parameters were examined and the optimal parameters were obtained according to the necessary tests which were carried out. Then, several methods of lipid extraction using different solvents such as chloroform, methanol, and n-hexane were investigated and the best... 

Biodiesel can be a good alternative for fossil diesel since it isrenewable, biodegradable and non-toxic. Also, in comparison with fossil fuels, it emits less air pollutants and greenhouse gases.Findacost effective and environmentally friendly wayforcontinuousproductionofbiodieselcanaddressmany of our environmental concerns. In this study, we applied heterogeneous alkali-catalyzed transesterification as method and used waste frying oil as a low cost feedstock for biodiesel production. The project was performed in two phases. First, experiments were conducted in astirred reactor to finda suitable catalyst which was strontium carbonate calcinated for 3:24 hours in 975̊C.
RPB(rotating... 

Increasing emissions of greenhouse gases from one hand and decline in the fossile resources of energy on the other hand has raised the motivation of searching for renewable sources. Biodiesel, because of having perfect feature for replacing with petroleum diesel, has been considered as candidate for this purpose. Using enzymatic reaction is one of the methods for biodiesel production. Understanding the kinetics of this reaction is important to achieve higher production rates.
In present work, the kinetic of transesterification of castor oil with use of Novozyme 435 (as enzyme) was investigated. Enzymatic biodiesel production is a bi-substrate (oil and alcohol) reaction. Genetic algorithm...