REZA HEMAT KHAH, NASRALLAH MAJIDIAN* AND AHMAD HALLAJI SANI
Department of Chemical Engineering, North Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
*(e-mail : n_majidian@iau-tnb.ac.ir; Mobile : 00989123447479)
(Received : March 18, 2019; Accepted : May 22, 2019)
ABSTRACT
In the transportation sector, biofuels are an appropriate replacement to petroleum-derived fuels. These fuels require major changes neither in the engine nor in the refueling process. Therefore, they are more easily compatible. To produce biofuels from microalgae, the use of Chlomydomonas sp. MCCS026 was studied in Iran. The study of microalgae in the production of liquid biofuels in thermochemical processing was carried out and integrated with the results of the main medium-sized pyrolysis research of an algae sample. Our research domain included key elements of pyrolysis versus hydrothermal liquefaction, identified the optimization opportunities of the energy conversion phase, and provided useful insights into the global biofuels chain design of the microalgae. The organic phase product was approximately 36% w/w for both the samples. Viscosities were near to viscosity of the lignocellulose fast-pyrolysis oils, while pH (about 7) showed a significant difference with pyrolysis oil obtained from lignocellulosic material. In contrast, the amount of water, oxygen, and nitrogen was important and they must be reduced. The product of the experimental pilot reactor oil mass reached about 36% w/w, while the energy product was 46% w/w for sample A. Despite this, if the experiment did not achieve the goal of energy optimization as well as the design modified randomly, it would definitely result in better functions. The experimental results showed that there were significant differences in the two samples. According to the technological methods, the analysis suggested that microalgae were a promising way of pyrolysis in terms of product quality and at least in comparison with energy production.
Key words : Chlomydomonas, microalgae, liquid biofuels, pyrolysis