| Summary: | In this study, the purification of crude glycerol as a by-product of
transesterification reaction was investigated. The first purification stage of the crude glycerol was achieved by employing the neutralization method, followed by microfiltration using 0.45µm filter membrane. Only glycerol peak could be detected by high performance liquid chromatography analysis which indicating that the neutralization step enabled to removal of excess homogeneous catalyst as well as the unreacted free fatty acids from crude glycerol samples. However, the free ions from salt and catalyst were then eliminated through an ion exchange process using two types of Amberlite resins to produce higher glycerol purity up to 99.4%. The purity of glycerol was confirmed by the other analysis such as the Fourier transform infrared, United States Pharmacopoeia and American society for testing and materials methods. The simulation studies were applied using Super-Pro-Designer 7.0 software which can provide the data for scale up to industrial scale. The P2 and P5 simulation process gives a higher purity of pure glycerol of 98.35 wt.% and 99.27 wt%, respectively were generated after through several combinatorial purification steps. The combination between the experimental and simulation process showed a good way to investigate the laboratory experiment input for possible industry scale in future.
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