17th Hiroshima University Biomass Evening Seminar was held



On Feb 7, 2014, the 17th Biomass Evening Seminar was held at Graduate School of Engineering, Hiroshima University.

Biomass Project Research Center, Hiroshima University, and HOSTY Association are co-organizing the Hiroshima University Biomass Evening Seminar. This seminar covers topics from the fundamentals of biomass to the latest information so that it can contribute the activities on biomass in this district.

  • Date & Time: Fri., Feb.7, 2014 16:20 - 17:50
  • Place:

    Engineering 110 Lecture Room, Higashi-Hiroshima Campus, Hiroshima University

[Program]

  • Commentary:

Yukihiko MATSUMURAMatsumura

Professor, Institute of Engineering, Hiroshima University

  • Chair:

Machi KANNA

Assistant Professor, Institute of Engineering, Hiroshima University

  • Lecture:

Yoshiko OKAMURA

Associate Professor,Graduate School of Advanced Sciences of Matter, Hiroshima University

"Metal affinity of photosynthetic bacteria and its application"

Photosynthetic bacteria showed heavy metal tolerance at high concentration and metal up-take activities. To clarify the abilities and the molecular mechanisms of metal oxidation/reduction will open the way to the technology for environmental applications or new materials.

AssociateProfessor Okamura
  • Lecture:

Obie FAROBIE

D2 Student,Graduate School of Engineering, Hiroshima University

"New Approach of Catalyst-Free Biodiesel Production in Supercritical tert-Butyl Methyl Ether (MTBE)"

This study reports on a novel approach for biodiesel production from canola oil in supercritical tert-butyl methyl ether (MTBE) without the addition of catalyst. Canola oil reacted with MTBE to generate fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) and glycerol tert-butyl ether (GTBE). No glycerol was obtained. FAME yield of 0.95 was obtained in the short reaction time of 12 min at 400C with molar ratio of MTBE to oil of 40:1 under the pressure of 10 MPa. The kinetics of the reaction was first order, and the activation energies and pre-exponential factors were calculated from the temperature dependence of the reaction rate constants.

Keywords: biomass, biodiesel, canola oil, supercritical condition, tert-butyl methyl ether

Obie FAROBIE
  • Lecture:

Kazuma SASANAMI

M2 Student,Graduate School of Engineering, Hiroshima University

"Biodiesel production using spiral reactor"

Biodiesel, fuel comprised of mono-alkyl esters of long chain fatty acids derived from vegetable oils or animal fats, has emerged as one of the most potential renewable energy to replace current petrol-derived diesel. It had been proved in the previous study that biodiesel production in supercritical conditions has many advantages, namely no need of catalyst, short reaction time, high conversion, easier separation and purification steps, and no side reaction saponification. However, this process still requires a high production cost. It is expected that this research will overcome this problem since spiral reactor has highly efficient space and it can be used as a heat exchanger to heat up the input feedstock and cool down the output product, thus could lower the production cost.

In this study, biodiesel production from canola using spiral reactor is proposed. Canola oil reacted with ethanol to produce fatty acid ethyl esters and glycerol. Temperature of the experiment is from 270 C to 400C , molar ratio of ethanol to oil of 40:1, in 20 min with the pressure of 20 MPa.

Kazuma SASANAMI

[Inquiries about this article]

Graduate School of Engineering, Hiroshima University

Y.NAKASHIMA

Mail: y4naka [AT] hiroshima-u.ac.jp

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