Biodiesel e microalghe: energia per un futuro sostenibile

The competitive potential of biodiesel is limited by the price of vegetable oils and production process, which strongly influences the final price. An appropriate planning and design of the whole production process, and the utilisation of dedicated crops; are essential in order to contain the high price of the end product. The purposes of this dissertation are to optimize the conversion of vegetables oil to biodiesel and identify a possible alternative of food crops. the is to measure the phase equilibria and then identify the thermodynamic model that best fit the experimental data obtained. Then a real biodiesel process is optimized. The optimisation of reaction and separation steps need the measurements of the phase equilibria of the of the systems involved during the production of biodiesel. Once the defined the thermodynamic model that best fit the experimental results, a multi-objective optimization of a real process performed. The objective of the optimisation are the minimisation of energy consumption and the maximisation of biodiesel quality. A possible alternative to food crops, like raw material for lipids, are Microalgae. Microalgae have a large biotechnological potential for production of a variety of compounds such as polysaccharides, lipids, proteins, carotenoids, pigments, vitamins, steroids, pharmaceuticals, and other fine chemicals, as well as hydrogen, hydrocarbons, and biofuels. They are organisms that can convert solar energy into biomass with high efficiency and yield. In addition, microalgae appear more photosynthetically efficient than terrestrial plants and are the candidates as the best efficient carbon dioxide fixers to reduce greenhouse emissions.