Characterization of azeotropic distillation for dehydration of aqueous glycerine solutions from the production process of biodiesel

Biodiesel is being introduced in the worldwide energy matrix. Raw glycerine is an unavoidable byproduct of biodiesel production. Conventional processes for purifying glycerine require high energy consumption. A new purification route that replaces the high-vacuum distillation by heterogeneous azeotropic distillation at 1 atm is put forward. The process reduces by 50% the energy consumption for distillation conducted at high vacuum. The best operation conditions were elucidated. The layout tray showed that the performance was appropriate for a height of froth and to the contact between the two liquid phases on the tray. Others layouts tray should be tested to explore factors related to the holes. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the 7th European Congress of Chemical Engineering-7 and 19th International Congress of Chemical and Process Engineering CHISA (Prague, Czech Republic 8/28/2010-9/1/2010).