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Updated: May 14, 2026
Experimental Protocol for Biodiesel Production with Isolation of Alkenones as Coproducts from Commercial Isochrysis Algal Biomass
Published on: June 24, 2016
LLE experimental data, thermodynamic modeling and sensitivity analysis in the ethyl biodiesel from macauba pulp oil
Rodrigo Corrêa Basso1, César Augusto Sodré da Silva, Camila de Oliveira Sousa
1Laboratory of Extraction, Applied Thermodynamics and Equilibrium (ExTrAE), School of Food Engineering, Department of Food Engineering, University of Campinas (UNICAMP), 13083-862 Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil. rodrigo.c.basso@gmail.com
Abstract:
The aim of this study was to obtain experimental data related to liquid–liquid equilibrium (LLE) of systems containing glycerol + ethanol + ethyl biodiesel from macauba pulp oil, perform thermodynamic modeling and simulate the settling step of this biodiesel using simulation software. Binary interaction parameters were adjusted for NRTL and UNIQUAC models. The UNIFAC-LLE and UNIFAC-Dortmund models were used to predict the LLE of the systems. A sensitivity analysis was applied to the settling step to describe the composition of the output streams as a function of ethanol in the feed stream. Ethanol had greater affinity for the glycerol-rich phase. The deviations between experimental data and calculated values were 0.44%, 1.07%, 3.52% and 2.82%, respectively, using the NRTL, UNIQUAC, UNIFAC-LLE and UNIFAC-Dortmund models. Excess ethanol in the feed stream causes losses of ethyl ester in the glycerol-rich stream and high concentration of glycerol in the ester-rich stream.
