Page 113 - Refining Biomass Residues for Sustainable Energy and Bioproducts

Application of heterogeneous acid 4

catalyst derived from biomass for
biodiesel process intensification:

a comprehensive review

2
1
Sivakumar Pandian , Sakthi Saravanan Arumugamurthi ,
3
4
Periyasamy Sivanandi , Mahula Santra and Vijaya Kumar Booramurthy 2
1
School of Petroleum Technology, Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University, Gandhinagar,
2
India, Department of Petrochemical Engineering, RVS College of Engineering and
3
Technology, Coimbatore, India, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Government
4
College of Technology, Coimbatore, India, School of Engineering and Applied Science,
Ahmedabad University, Ahmedabad, India

4.1 Introduction

Energy is explicitly connected with human welfare across globe, but fulfilling the
ever growing need for energy in a safer way is a key challenge today. This is due
to the rapid increase in crude oil prices and depletion of fossil fuel reserves
(Shafiee and Topal, 2009). Focused research endeavors over a period of time have
contributed towards finding efficient methods to generate alternative fuels (Salvi
et al., 2013). Biofuels, in the form of liquids, are being developed universally
(Papalexandrou et al., 2008). They are also known as agrofuels that are mainly
derived from renewable sources and can be directly used as substitutes for conven-
tional fuels with or without any modification. Till date, a variety of liquid fuels are
extracted and developed from a wide range of biomasses like ethanol, biodiesel,
etc. (Srivastava and Prasad, 2000; Kalligeros et al., 2002; Barnwal and Sharma,
2005).
At present, biodiesel is believed to be the most promising existing alternative,
which has the ability to solve the increasing demand for liquid fuels (Huang et al.,
2011; Suranani et al., 2018). It is produced by transesterifying vegetable oils and
animal fats with alcohol in the presence of base catalysts which is an extensively
used method in industries (Otera, 1993; Lotero et al., 2005). Nonetheless, there are
a few financial constraints in producing biodiesel because of the heavy price of
refined feedstock that also does not recuperate and reuse the homogeneous cata-
lysts, and the disposal of the wastewater produced during the process is yet another
mounting challenge (Zhang et al., 2003; Atadashi et al., 2012; Gopal et al., 2014;
Huang et al., 2015). The use of low-priced feedstock, such as waste oils, and animal

Refining Biomass Residues for Sustainable Energy and Bioproducts. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-818996-2.00004-1
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