http://localhost:8081/jspui/handle/123456789/3 Sun, 29 Jun 2025 12:30:31 GMT 2025-06-29T12:30:31Z http://localhost:8081/jspui/handle/123456789/17321 Title: COMPARATIVE ASSESSMENT OF BIODIESEL PRODUCTION PROCESSES USING ASPEN PLUS SIMULATIONS Authors: Trichal, Archiit Abstract: With escalating world-wide energy demands and depletion of the conventional fossil fuel reserves (the diesel fuels), there has been immense research done to create alternatives for them. The bio-based sources provide a promising and hopeful alternative for replacing the diesel fuels. Biodiesel is the most popular and highly demanded fuel amongst the present alternatives due to its several benign qualities and its sustainable nature of usage. It helps reducing the quantity of harmful emissions, reduces the greenhouse gas emissions, and improves the combustion efficiency inside the vehicles. Despite its many advantages, the existing biodiesel production processes faces severe problems and bottlenecks, owing to the high energy costs involved for its production and enrichment. This problem has been detrimental towards the commercialization of biodiesel production to a very severe extent. This work undertakes a comparative study between a conventional biodiesel formation process (consisting of a reactor and distillation columns in series) and a novel catalytic distillation process. By energy analysis of the two processes, we establish that the latter can help reduce the total energy requirements for biodiesel production and is therefore a more promising alternative. First, the simulation for conventional biodiesel production was performed in Aspen Plus v 8.4. The energy requirements for producing biodiesel were obtained for this conventional simulation. Then simulations on catalytic distillation were run using rate based modeling. The feed and product specifications as well as flow rates were kept similar to that of the conventional process so that then we can compare the energy requirements for both the processes. The comparison of energy analysis revealed that - catalytic distillation simulation helped in reducing energy demands for the biodiesel formation by over 30% compared to the conventional biodiesel formation processes. iv We also performed sensitivity analysis for both processes to decide on the various optimum unit operation parameters that governed the net heat duty requirements of the biodiesel process. The main idea was to have the biodiesel at the desired purity level (as guided by the ASTM standards) with minimum energy requirements possible. This analysis helped to simulate those parameters and find their best point of operation. Fri, 01 May 2015 00:00:00 GMT http://localhost:8081/jspui/handle/123456789/17321 2015-05-01T00:00:00Z http://localhost:8081/jspui/handle/123456789/17320 Title: PRODUCTION OF ALGAL OIL AND - BIODIESEL AND ITS CHARACTERISATION Authors: Abhimanyu Abstract: roduction of bio-fuel especially from algae has been area of great interest for research which is very much relevant looking at the present scenario where everybody is trying to find an ideal alternate to naturally available petroleum energy resources. Production of biodiesel from algae as feedstock is more economical than any other biomass used as feedstock. It is so as some of the algal species studied have much better lipid content quantitatively and there growth rate is significantly enormous. Though large amount of work has been done on algal biodiesel production through dry algae process, not much work has been done using wet algae biomass as feedstock. In this thesis project, techniques to produce biodiesel from algae were studied and out of all the known techniques, solvent extraction and ultrasonic extraction were used to produce algal oil from wet algae containing around 55% of water and further biodiesel by transesterification process. Aim of the experiments done was to develop optimized technique for extraction of lipids from algae. A comparison was drawn between algal oil and biodiesel produced from solvent extraction using soxhlet apparatus, solvent extraction using flask-condenser-stirrer setup and ultrasonic extraction. Hexane was used as solvent for extraction of lipids from algae in all three processes. Amount of algal oil produced per gram of wet algal biomass was calculated for each extraction process and compared with estimated amount. Algal oil produced was transesterified with methanol under basic conditions using sodium hydroxide. Characterization of algal oil samples and biodiesel samples was done which include determination of density, aniline point, flash point, fire point and calorific value. Analysis part includes FTIR spectra of algal biomass samples (before and after extraction), algal oil and biodiesel samples, GC-MS of biodiesel samples recovered in three processes, XRD analysis of fresh dried algae, Fe-SEM of dried fresh and used algae samples and TLC of oil and biodiesel samples. Algae biomass left after algal oil extraction can be used further for bioremediation purpose for cleaning waste water or as animal feed. Fri, 01 May 2015 00:00:00 GMT http://localhost:8081/jspui/handle/123456789/17320 2015-05-01T00:00:00Z http://localhost:8081/jspui/handle/123456789/17308 Title: CHEMICAL REDUCTION OF NITRATE IN SYNTHETIC WASTEWATER BY ZERO VALENT IRON Authors: Kumar, Ashish Abstract: Nitrate is chemically occurring compound in nature. It is appreciably found in the regions where the use of nitrogenous fertilizer is in excess amount. The permissible limit of nitrate in ground water is 50mg/I. High nitrate may cause methemoglobinemia, blue baby syndrome and cancer. Chemical reduction by using Zero Valent Iron (ZVI) is simple, economical and essential technique for reducing the nitrate contaminant in ground water. ZVI same as iron powder but it is zero valence iron. Typically it is synthesised in bio chemical lab. The property and characteristics of ZVI is considered by scientific techniques e.g. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Brunauer, Emmett and Teller (BET), Particle Size analyser and Zeta Potential. The particles traced in the range of 40 - 100nm offering surface area 6.61m2/g. The initial concentration sample were prepared and treated with ZVI. Reduction is carried out at elevated temperature (55 - 60°C) and atmospheric pressure. Suitable reduction conditions are Fe° dose (I - 3mg/I), p1-1 of the nitrate solution (>11) and mixing intensity 120 - 150 rpm. The Average percentage reduction is estimated around 70% within an hour. Chemical reduction reaction order becomes pseudo first order reaction Sun, 01 Jun 2014 00:00:00 GMT http://localhost:8081/jspui/handle/123456789/17308 2014-06-01T00:00:00Z http://localhost:8081/jspui/handle/123456789/17307 Title: CATALYTIC WET PEROXIDATION OF HYDROQUINONE Authors: Bajpai, Bhavna Abstract: The present study deals with the oxidation of hydroquinone bearing wastewater by catalytic wet peroxidation process using M003 supported over ZrO2 catalyst under mild conditions. The heterogeneous catalyst was synthesized using simple wet impregnation method with impregnation of different wt% of molybdenum oxide over zirconia surface. Consequently, various properties of the catalyst such as morphological, optical and structural properties were examined using X-ray diffractometer (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM). XRD analysis marked the presence of monoclinic and tetragonal phases in the catalyst structure. The BET surface area values of the catalyst showed a good value of surface area for the oxidation to take place. The TGA analysis showed the thermal stability of the catalyst at high temperatures. The experiment was conducted in several runs to examine and optimize the effect of various parameters such as metal oxide loading, catalyst dose, temperature, contact time, hydrogen peroxide dose and pH. At optimum conditions, 93% removal was achieved at 55°C at natural pH (optimum) with catalyst dose of lg/L and optimum oxidant dose of 3.6 mIlL in 3h. Sun, 01 Jun 2014 00:00:00 GMT http://localhost:8081/jspui/handle/123456789/17307 2014-06-01T00:00:00Z