Performance Optimization of Property-improved Biodiesel Manufacturing Process Coupled with Butanol Extractive Fermentation

In traditional acetone-butanol (AB) fermentation, the products concentrations are too low. Therefore, large amount of energy is consumed in the distillation and product recovery process. Aiming at direct utilization of the fermentation products, in this study, the optimization of property-improved biodiesel manufacturing process coupled with AB extractive fermentation was conducted, under the condition of using the biodiesel that originated from waste cooking oil as the extractant and high concentrated corn flour as medium. The effect of biodiesel/broth volume ratio, waste supernatant recycle ratio, and electron carrier addition on major process performance index was carefully investigated. Under the optimized condition, the biodiesel quality was improved with cetane number (CN) increased from 51.4 to 54.4; “actual butanol yield” reached the level of 18%, and waste supernatant recycle ratio exceeded 50%. In this way, elimination of energy-consuming product recovery process and realization of “energy-saving & waste minimization” industrial production mode advocated by the state government could be potentially expected.