Grantee Research Project Results
Final Report: Southeastern Massachusetts Student Network for Biodiesel Research and Education
EPA Grant Number: SU835696Title: Southeastern Massachusetts Student Network for Biodiesel Research and Education
Investigators: Brush, Edward J , Ackley, Brandon , Hooper, Julianne , Ivanowksy, Nathan , Korslund, Ian , Kurriss, Phoebe , Sprague, Leonard
Institution: Bridgewater State College
EPA Project Officer: Hahn, Intaek
Phase: I
Project Period: August 15, 2014 through August 14, 2015
Project Amount: $14,068
RFA: P3 Awards: A National Student Design Competition for Sustainability Focusing on People, Prosperity and the Planet (2014) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Pollution Prevention/Sustainable Development , P3 Challenge Area - Air Quality , P3 Challenge Area - Chemical Safety , P3 Awards , Sustainable and Healthy Communities
Objective:
The conversion of waste vegetable oil (WVO) into biodiesel is a simple chemical transformation called transesterification, uses potassium hydroxide as a base catalyst, and involves conversion of fatty acid triacyl-glycerides into esters of methanol, Figure 1. This process has been adopted in chemistry lab courses and transformed into hands-on outreach projects. However, the full educational impact of small scale biodiesel production at the college and high school levels is limited due to costs, safety issues and process inefficiency.
Figure 1: Transesterification of vegetable oil to biodiesel
This project represents the broad interests of the Bridgewater State University (BSU) EPA P3 Project Team to apply sustainability principles to solve a chemistry related problem that would have potential benefits to society. Through undergraduate lab courses and research projects the Team has experience making biodiesel from WVO and evaluating the efficiency of the process. The Project Team concluded that the conversion of WVO into biodiesel is a complex, interrelated, and overall inefficient process, summarized in Figure 2, with the key steps numbered 1-6.
The overarching goal of the EPA P3 Phase I project was to establish a Biodiesel Research and Education Network between BSU students and faculty and the regional community colleges and high schools in southeastern Massachusetts.
We propose to design and construct an inexpensive, safe, bench top processor from easily accessible materials for converting WVO into biodiesel. BSU research students will apply green chemistry principles to design research projects to improve the efficiency of the current process, then use the processor to test their experimental designs. The processor must be flexible in design and adaptable to testing a variety of experimental approaches. To increase the scope of new research ideas and potentially innovative technology, this project will be expanded in Phase II to regional high school students, expanding the breadth of research engagement and potential for innovation.
Figure 2. Flowchart illustrating the preparation of biodiesel from waste vegetable oil (WVO).
Projects related to biodiesel have been common over the course of the EPA P3 program. Many of these projects focused on biodiesel production using standard chemical methods for transesterification and aqueous extraction. This project is an innovative approach combining sustainability and green chemistry principles to critically examine the efficiency of the entire process, identify potential limitations, and propose potential solutions. These solutions will evolve from the Biodiesel Research and Education Network, an innovative approach to research productivity and sustainability education focused on applying sustainability and green chemistry principles toward improving the efficiency of biodiesel production from WVO.
Summary/Accomplishments (Outputs/Outcomes):
(1) Development of Project GreenLab (PGL). Project GreenLab aims to educate the BSU and regional communities about green chemistry and the impacts of chemicals on human and environmental health. Through the EPA P3 Phase I project, PGL was established as an outreach initiative to engage students and educators from BSU, community colleges, high schools and middle schools in education and research focused on green chemistry. PGL will serve as the administrative unit for the Phase I project, and for sustaining future initiatives.
(2) Purchase, set up and operation of a commercial, one liter jacketed chemical reactor from ChemGlass. Although the ChemGlass reactor was purchased, set up and all mechanical parts tested, reactor operation had not been completed at the time of this report, and will be extended to Phase II. The picture shown at the right has the ChemGlass Reactor (left) next to the bench top reactor designed and constructed by the Phase I team.
(3) Design, construction and testing of a bench top reactor. We successfully designed and built a “prototype” 500 mL bench top reactor, modeled in part after the commercial ChemGlass reactor as shown in the picture to the right. The reactor was designed to: simplify the tradition bench top process using beakers and separatory funnels, be adaptable for reaction optimization, made from readily available materials, inexpensive, and safe for the user and other lab workers. The BSU Team did come up against several key challenges during the design phase:
finding a clear or moderately opaque reaction vessel so that the contents are readily visible; being able to easily separate immiscible fluids (biodiesel and glycerol); and finding a simple solution to heating and stirring the biodiesel reaction. Although these design challenges have been addressed in the “prototype” reactor, in Phase II the reactor will undergo redesign and refinement in order to address these challenges.
(4) Apply sustainability and green chemistry principles to identify a list of priority problems leading to poor efficiency in the traditional chemical process for converting WVO into biodiesel. Over the past year, the Phase I student team has studied the traditional basecatalyzed process of synthesizing biodiesel from WVO, and developed a list of key research questions that are laboratory-testable at the college and high school levels. These questions will be explored as research questions assigned to high school students visiting BSU during the summer of the Phase II grant period.
(5) Reducing the amount of methanol to stoichiometric levels. The Phase I team has applied green chemistry principles to design and test an efficient reflux system using static fluid coolants to optimize methanol use and recovery in biodiesel synthesis. The traditional process of synthesizing biodiesel requires excessive amounts of methanol, a required reactant. As traditional reflux condensers require the unsustainable use of cold water, we explored the use of static liquid reflux condensers to make the reflux process more efficient, less costly, and more sustainable. The “static” coolants are sealed into a reflux condenser, and are selected based on their specific heat capacities. Our preliminary results are promising in that an Allihn condenser with water coolant seems to be the most effective for the recovery of refluxing methanol.
(6) Development of green chemistry metrics and assessment plan to evaluate research on the efficiency of biodiesel synthesis from waste vegetable oil. In order to evaluate our progress at improving the efficiency of small-scale biodiesel production, we need a set of green chemistry metrics that could be applied to an assessment rubric to evaluate biodiesel reaction efficiency. This is a challenge as there are no reliable metrics for assessing the application of green chemistry principles to chemical processes. We have developed a preliminary list of green chemistry principles and chemistry efficiency metrics that will form the basis of an assessment scale appropriate to evaluating the efficiency of chemical processes that will be developed in Phase II.
(7) Project Dissemination. The BSU project team was strongly committed to disseminating our research and program results through presentations at regional and national conferences, and publications in peer review research and education journals. Our goal is that our program design and may serve as a useful model to other institutions, and serve as a useful contribution to the P3 research and education program. We have been very successful to date with ten public presentations at venues on and off the BSU campus.
Conclusions:
The BSU EPA P3 Project Team has met many of the proposed outputs/outcomes of the Phase I grant project. The BSU Phase I grant has provided us with the opportunity to work together as an interdisciplinary Project Team, discussing ideas and approaches, working though problems, practicing and giving group presentations, and planning for continuation of the project work. Although many of our goals have been achieved, due to unavoidable delays due to snow cancellations, critical work on this project is still in progress and will be continued through summer 2015 (through support by BSU undergraduate research grants), and in Phase II.
Journal Articles:
No journal articles submitted with this report: View all 10 publications for this projectSupplemental Keywords:
Renewable feedstocks, environmental education, alternative energy source, renewable energy, renewable fuel, biodiesel, waste to energy, bio-based feed stocks, green chemistry, green energy, environmentally benign substitute, water conservationThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.