Simulation and economic evaluation of fuel additives production from glycerol

Abstract Biodiesel production continuously increases. This also increases the production of glycerol, the main by-product of transesterification, whose surplus is not fully absorbed by the market. An interesting destination for glycerol is the production of additives for the biofuel itself, as a green and economical alternative to conventional additives. The objective of this work is to simulate the production processes of three oxygenated fuel additives from the glycerol that is generated in the biodiesel production process: solketal, glycerol tert-butyl ethers (GTBE) and glycerol ethyl ethers (GEE). The processes were simulated in Aspen HYSYS® v8.8 and the capital and production costs were estimated. Among the evaluated alternatives, solketal production showed to be the most promising, since it is simpler than those of the other products and it works with acetone, which is cheaper than tert-butanol - required for GTBE production - and is needed in lower flowrates than ethanol - required for GEE production.