The document summarizes research into using high voltage electricity to separate glycerin from biodiesel more effectively than gravity settling alone. Experiments tested factors like FFA content, electrode distance and voltage. Results showed separation improved with greater distance between electrodes and took less time with higher FFA levels. Applying over 1000 volts for 10-20 seconds separated mixtures by over 90%. This electrostatic separation technique shows potential for continuous, efficient glycerin/biodiesel separation. Further optimization and safety testing would be needed for real-world applications.
1. High Voltage Separation of Biodiesel from Glycerin G. Austic, R. Burton, S. Shore, Piedmont Biofuels, Pittsboro, North Carolina, U.S.A. 2nd International Congress on Biodiesel: The Science and The Technologies 15-17 November 2009 Munich, Germany
16. Experiment 1 Results Largest distance between electrodes showed the shortest separation time for all FFA levels The higher the FFA, the longer the separation time
24. Experimental 4 Results: 2% FFA As glycerin drops out, conductance of the material between the electrodes decreases
25. Power and Separation with Time Change in resistance (i.e., power) occurs once you get above 80% completeness of separation
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29. Acknowledgements Contact: Rachel Burton Piedmont Biofuels www.biofuels.coop 919-321-8260 Piedmont Research Team: Greg Austic, Scott Shore, Xiaohu Fan
Editor's Notes
GREG I need the image of the 3 grad cylinders from your paper
Question- do the samples still have methanol?
No glycerin in 6% for stage 1, small amount stage 2, lot in stage 3
Add a picture of the watt meter
Watts up? Pro Watt Meter
Varaic- variable transformer
NEED TALKING POINTS- is there a statistical difference between the variying ffa levels and conductivity for either biodiesel & glycerin? Note the difference between biodiesel & glycerin. Crude biodiesel is Dramatically different than neat biodiesel
Goal here is characterizing the limitations & conditions for the high voltage separation. What is the goal for phase 2? evaluate the change in our factors (completeness of conversion, resistance in the solution) while varying time, voltage, and oil type, and electrode distance basically we're testing the settled products (bio and glyc at 0 2 6%) to see what their baseline conductance is [11/16/09 3:32:48 PM] gbathree: then we're testing a bunch of variables, and seeing how that conductance changes over time
Why these voltages? They were 4 settings for the variac. The variac goes from 0 - 140, but the voltage out of the wall is 0 - 120 - so if you choose seemingly normal variac settings of 5, 50, 95, 140 you end up with weird voltages after you do the calculation. the transformer is 75:1 - so you have to multiply the number by 75 to get the voltage
90 seconds was the cut-off, so if the bar is at 90 it did not reach the separation benchmark For all three ffa levels, when the distance between electrodes decreased, the time for separation increased. NEED TALKING POINTS: As you can see the largest distance between electrodes showed the shortest separation time for all ffa levels Higher the ffa, the longer the sep time
NEED TALKING POINTS- but when you come separation time vs gravity, you see an apparent time variation
Here we found that the lower limitation 1286 V which achieved 89% separation completeness
10 seconds is minimal level for 0% FFA 20 second is the minimal level for 6% FFA 15 second is the minimum level of 0 and 2% 20 seconds is the optimal time for all ffa levels
What is the goal? The idea is to evaluate resistance through the medium by measuring the power through the variac, that way we can see how resistance varies as the glycerin drops out [11/16/09 3:44:44 PM] gbathree: slide 26 is sort of the key slide here
Combine with redone exp 3 results, This is the power drop-off for 0 FFA oils. NEED TALKING POINTS
NEED TALKING POINTS 2 % FFA oil: at varying distances, power consumption was reduced over time due to the reduction in conductance? as glycerin drops out the conductance of the material between the electrodes decreases (as we showed in the first few slides, glycerin is a better conductor)
it looks like the big change in resistance (i.e., power) occurs once you get above 80% completeness of separation a direct comparison of completeness of conversion with power on the same graph
Power Curve conductance shows the trend of high conductance diminishing
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