Separation Process of Biodiesel-Product Mixture from Crude Glycerol and Other Contaminants Using Electrically Driven Separation Technique with AC High Voltage

Electrically driven separation (EDS) technology with a high voltage (HV) alternating current source (AC) was used to remove glycerol and other contaminants from biodiesel in order to meet the ASTM D6751 and EN 14214 standards. Biodiesel was produced from a transesterification of refined palm oil and methanol using sodium methylate as a homogeneous catalyst. The effects of an Iron (Fe) electrode, including types of electrode configurations, vertical distance between electrodes, applied voltage, and separation time, were studied. Furthermore, the effects of the remaining catalyst and soap content in biodiesel phase were also investigated to improve the separating performance using the EDS technique. The EDS using HVAC and low amperage with a point-to-point electrode configuration showed the highest separation efficiency of 99.8%. The optimum vertical distance between electrodes was 3 cm, while the optimum applied voltage was 3 kV. The separation time of 240 s yielded the best separating performance, completely eliminating the unreacted catalyst, and the lowest of the normalized remaining soap value content was obtained. Considering all of this, the EDS technique had higher efficiency to remove glycerol and other contaminants than a conventional separation of gravitation settling. The final biodiesel product was produced with the high purity of 98.0 wt% after purification and met all standard specifications.