Journal of Environmental Biology

Purification and characterization of waste stream glycerol derived

from biodiesel industry

Chozhavendhan Sivasankaran^{1, 2}*, Praveen Kumar Ramanujam², Sivarathnakumar Shanmugam²,

Kirubalini Govindaraji² and Jayakumar Mani³

¹PRIST University, Thanjavur-613 403, India

²Arunai Engineering College, Tiruvannamalai-606 603, India

³Institute of Technology, Haramaya University, P.O. Box-138, Ethiopia

*Corresponding Author E-mail: scv.ibt@gmail.com

Publication Data

Paper received:

20 September 2015

Revised received:

05 May 2016

Accepted:

24 August 2016

Abstract

Biodiesel possesses the record of mostly investigated eco-friendly biofuels, which can be fashioned by transesterification of natural fatty acids. Large volume of waste stream glycerol is generated as a byproduct during the production of biofuel. Disposal of this glycerol without proper treatment in the environment is hazardous as it contains copious impurities like methanol, organic salts, free fatty acids and water. Alternatively, waste stream glycerol can be utilized as cheap carbon source for the production of high-value chemicals like ethanol, citric acid, propanediol etc. In this study, waste glycerol was partially purified to increase its concentration by sequential steps like distillation, acidification and adsorption process to utilize it effectively as carbon source for the microorganisms. The concentration of acidified glycerol treated with sulphuric acid was found to be high when compared with phosphoric acid. The glycerol rich phase was high in phosphoric acid and GC-MS studies also reveal that the phosphoric acid removes major impurities when compared with sulphuric acid. The purified glycerol obtained could be stored and used as a carbon source for the production of high value chemical.   

 Key words

Acidification, Bio-fuel, Distillation, Waste stream glycerol

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