In situ biodiesel production from wet Chlorella vulgaris under subcritical condition

摘要

The conventional base catalyzed biodiesel production process uses refined vegetable oil as feedstock oil\udand is not environmentally friendly. The supercritical methanol technology does not require the use of\udcatalyst but it is energy intensive due to the high temperature and pressure required in the process. In\udthis work, a process was developed for producing biodiesel directly from wet Chlorella vulgaris biomass\ud(80% moisture content) using subcritical water as catalyst. Under the following conditions: The ratio of\udwet biomass to methanol is 1/4 (g/mL), the reaction temperature is 175° C and after 4 h, the reaction\udproduct contained 89.71% fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs). The yield is 0.29 g FAME per g dry biomass.\udThis is considerably higher than the yield of 0.20 g FAME per g dry biomass obtained when the neutral\udlipid of C. vulgaris biomass was extracted and converted into FAME.