Department of Chemical Engineering

EASTERN VISAYAS STATE UNIVERSITY

Main Campus-Tacloban City

PRODUCTION OF BIODIESEL FROM MICROALGAE

CHLORELLA PROTOTHECOIDES

By
CONDES, PHILIP JOHN V. AND OREVILLO, RHEA C.
BSChE-5A
A PROGRESS REPORT for
A Conceptual Undergraduate Plant Design (ChE 523) submitted to
JUVYNEIL ECHON CARTEL, MEngg ChE
Adviser
In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering

August 4, 2016

Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Design Background
With increasing concerns on the continued use of fossil fuels, biofuels, which is a
renewable and green alternative, now have received a large amount of attention all across
the world. (Christenson & Sims, 2011).
Jadhav (2009) concluded that the fuel-grade ethanol production in 2007 in China
and Thailand was 1.8 and 0.3 billion litres respectively. For now, the energy use has
already increased by about 30% in Latin America, 40% in Africa and 50% in Asia.
The European Union produces 4.84 million tonnes/year of biodiesel with major
share from Germany (2.18 million tonnes) while current production is about 100
million litres in Australia and 200,000 tonnes in Malaysia. In the USA, the ethanol
production may reach a target of 136.38 billion litres by 2016. Overall, the global
demand of biofuels is expected to rise by 50 to 60% in coming 20 years (Jadhav,
2009).
Chisti (2007) stated that biodiesel has been commercially produced since the
1960s. Searching for the cheaper sources and waste sources from domestic, agricultural
and industrial field is important to the biodiesel industry due to a desired decrease in
capital cost and consumes the organic and inorganic pollutants from waste streams as
well. These sources include, but are not limited to, corn, soybean, sugar cane leaves, food
waste, microalgae and straws (Gang, et al., 2012).
The main advantage in its usage is attributed to lesser exhaust emissions in terms
of carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, particulate matter, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon
compounds and nitrated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon compounds. Biodiesel is said

to be carbon neutral as more of carbon dioxide is absorbed by the biodiesel yielding

plants than what is added to the atmosphere when used as fuel (Sharma et al., 2008).
1.2 Design Objective
The biodiesel manufacturing plant aims to achieve the following design objectives:
1. To Produce High Quality and Eco-friendly Energy Source (Biodiesel) from
Microalga Species Chlorella protethocoides.
2. To help the Country in the Scarcity of Energy Source in terms of Quality and
Price.
3. To raise the economic status of the region and the local community in terms of
employment and job offers.
1.3. Design Scope and Limitations
The design of the project is mainly limited to the cultivation method used in
growth of Microalgae species Chlorella protothecoides, the solvents in the extraction,
reaction time, reagents and catalyst used in the Transesterification process.
Heterotrophic cultured lipid productivities are reported to reach 20 times higher
than those of harvested from autotrophic culture. The major shortcomings of
heterotrophic cultivation ease of contamination and high cost of carbon and nitrogen
compounds used for substrate. (Fukuda, Kondo & Noda, 2001).
Transesterification can be catalyzed by three types of catalysts, which include
acids, alkalis and lipase enzymes. The most widely applied catalysis is alkali-catalyzed
transesterification using sodium and potassium hydroxide due to faster reaction velocity
and lower commercial price (Fukuda, Kondo & Noda, 2001).
Acid-catalyzed transesterifications reactions are slow which require over 100C
and 3 hours to finish the conversion process. However, it has been investigated that acidcatalyzed transesterifications can achieve high free fatty acid and water concentrations

and this characteristic makes acid catalyzed transesterifications more suitable for
glycerides production (Fukuda, Kondo & Noda, 2001).