Removal of Saturated Monoglyceride in Biodiesel Using Adsorption and Its Effect on Low-Temperature Properties of Biodiesel Blends

¹ Program in Petrochemistry and Polymer Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok 10330, Thailand
² Petroleum Product and Alternative Fuel Technology Research Department, PTT Innovation Institute, Ayutthaya 13170, Thailand
³ Center of Excellence in Catalysis for Bioenergy and Renewable Chemicals (CBRC), Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok 10330, Thailand
⁴ Center of Excellence on Petrochemical and Materials Technology (PETROMAT), Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok 10330, Thailand

^* Corresponding author: Chawalit.N@Chula.ac.th

Abstract

Saturated monoglyceride (SMG) is a main cause of precipitate formed above cloud point of biodiesel (B100), which leads to filter plugging in diesel engine. In this work, we studied the effect of SMG content (0.1–0.7 wt%) of palm biodiesel (PO-B100) on the cloud point (CP) of diesel fuels blended with PO-B100 at different concentrations (B0, B7, B10 and B20). Euro 4 and Euro 5 diesels with a high and low aromatic content were used, respectively. The effect of SMG concentration on CP of biodiesel blends was more pronounced in case of a low aromatic Euro 5 diesel. An extent of CP change was also affected by the initial SMG concentration of PO-B100 and biodiesel blending ratios since they determined the SMG content of the final biodiesel blends. An adsorptive removal of SMG in PO-B100 was investigated by using natural zeolite as much cheaper adsorbents than commercial magnesium silicate (MS) and silica gel. The crystalline structure of natural zeolite and MS was studied by X-ray diffraction. Both MS and silica gel exhibited higher performance than natural zeolite in the SMG removal at 45 °C. To improve the SMG adsorption capacity, the natural zeolite was treated with 1 M nitric acid solution at 60 °C. The resulting modified zeolite had an increased SiO₂ content, as measured by X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, due to dealumination effect. Moreover, it showed an improved adsorption performance: the capacity of SMG adsorption was 31.5 mgSMG g-1, corresponding to a decrease of SMG content of PO-B100 from 0.7 wt% to 0.35 wt%, when using 10 wt% adsorbent loading at 45 oC for 50 min. As a result, an increase in the cloud point of biodiesel blends was significantly retarded.