High Voltage/Low Amperage Current for Separation of Crude Glycerin from Biodiesel

Limited energy resources and increasingly strict emission regulations have motivated an intense search for alternative transportation fuels over the last three decades. Biodiesel is an environmentally friendly alternative diesel fuel consisting of the alkyl monoesters of fatty acids from vegetable oils and animal fats. As biodiesel production technology changes, all aspects of the process are being tested and refined for faster, easier, and more efficient production. One such piece of the production process is separating glycerin and biodiesel. The use of gravity method is not a proper solution for production facilities looking to move to a continuous flow setup. Centrifuge systems are expensive as their power consumption is concerned to run and maintain and inefficacy as circumstances change. In this study, to separate glycerin from glycerin-biodiesel mixture a new method was used in which an electrostatic field caused by a high voltage (more than kV) and low amperage AC current (mA) is used. In this method, the process of coagulation particles or drops of glycerin in biodiesel-glycerin mixture from an electrostatic field is done.