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ENVIROMENTAL TECHNOLOGY  
 
   
1. Biodiesel  

Biodiesel is made of native, growing again raw materials and is therefore getting more and more importance - from environmental as well as from economic point of view. For the production of biodiesel vegetable oils and used cooking oil and fat as well as animal fats are used. During the transesterification the preheated and prepared oil is mixed with an alcohol, mostly methanol, and an alkaline catalyst. During this process gylicerine is separated from the fat and replaced by three single alcohol molecules, resulting in biodiesel, a fatty acid alkyl ester, and glycerine. Biodiesel has similar characteristics as fossile diesel fuel and can thus be used in conventional diesel motors.

  
   
Production in a Continuous Process  
   
 
   
  1. In classical plants fats are transesterified in a two-stage batch process. This is normally done in two subsequent batch containers.
  2. Using a special IKA® inline dispersing machine of type DISPAX-REACTOR® now gives the possibility to carry out the transesterification in a continuous process in one stage. The raw material is continuously fed.
  3. The transesterification reaction takes place in the high-energetic shear zone of the dispersing machine. The raw materials are dissolved to finest droplets, by which the specific surface is enormously enlarged and the mass transfer is decisively intensified. This noticeably accelerates the transesterification reaction and maximizes the output. The complete transesterification can be carried out in one stage and fully automatic.
  
   

Advantages:

  • lower running costs
  • lower investment expenditure
  • clearly reduced space requirement
  • more flexible production
  
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2. Preparations of vegetables oil  
Vegetable oils can be used as fuel in motors that are adapted accordingly. For use in conventional diesel motors fats have first to be transesterified and thus converted into so-called biodiesel. For both cases the raw vegetable oil has first to be "degummed". For this purpose proteins, carbides and phosphatides, that cloud the oil and are responsible for conglutination effects, have to be removed. Afterwards free fatty acids, that accelerate the spoiling of the oil and also disturb the conversion into biodiesel, can be removed by neutralization.
  
   
Production in a Inline Process  
   
 
   
Vegetable oils are processed in following steps:  
   
1. Degumming  
Part of the phosphatides in the raw oil are hydrogenizable with water and can thus easily be separated. The remaining non-hydrogenizable phosphatides can be separated by adding acid.

The untreated oil is heated up to 60°C - 70°C and thoroughly mixed with up to 1% of phosphoric acid. The acid is reacting with the phosphatides, thus enabling a settlement of the water. The phosphatides can then be separated by filtration or centrifuging. This results in a "degummed" oil and gum resin, from which, under certain conditions, lecithin can be produced. For a thorough mixing of acid and oil the IKA®-dispersing machine type DISPAX-REACTOR® DR 2000 proved to be very suitable.		  
   
2. Neutralization  
Free fatty acids (FFA) are influencing the taste of the oil and accelerate its spoiling. For neutralization of the FFA the oil is intensively mixed with sodium hydroxide at a temperature of approx. 90° to 100°C. The FFA are settling as soaps and can be sperated by centrifuging. The DISPAX-REACTOR® DR 2000 as well as the single stage dispersing machine of type ULTRA-TURRAX® UTL 2000 proved to be the right machines for neutralization of the FFA  
   
3. Bleaching  
In order to remove remaining impurities like colour and oxidation products the oil can finally be bleached. For this purpose it is intensively mixed with bleaching clay. For this process we recommend the IKA® inline mixing and dispersing machine type MHD 2000.  
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