No. After transesterification, the biodiesel phase is separated by using settlers or centrifuges and then passed directly through AMBERLITE™ BD10DRY™.

We recommend drying the biodiesel after it has been purified by AMBERLITE™ BD10DRY™. Methanol traces in the biodiesel will enhance the effectiveness of AMBERLITE™ BD10DRY™ to remove soap and catalyst.

None. The column towers contain a permanent sieving Johnson screen plate. One can think of the columns of AMBERLITE™ BD10DRY™ resin as self-contained filtering units.

Each weight unit of AMBERLITE™ BD10DRY™ has a given capacity for purifying biodiesel. In a well-run process with good phase separation, 1 lb (kg) of AMBERLITE™ BD10DRY™ resin will treat 900 to 1600 lbs (kgs) of biodiesel. The lifetime of the resin thus depends on three main factors: (1) the impurity levels in the incoming contaminated biodiesel stream, (2) the flow rate, and (3) the amount of AMBERLITE™ BD10DRY™ in the column. Note that changing the loading of the columns (while maintaining at least 200% freeboard) will affect the replacement rate but will not change your overall consumption of AMBERLITE™ BD10DRY™.

The purification capacity of Amberlite™ BD10DRY™ is exhausted when impurities are no longer captured by the resin. At this "breakthrough" point, one will start to detect low levels of cations in the biodiesel that has passed through the column. Although we recommend that the Industry Standard test methods be used, it is often practical to use a common indicator to detect when the breakthrough point has been reached.

The column size will depend on the production rate you want to achieve in your plant. It should be noted that the size of the column will not impact your overall resin consumption rate or the operating cost. Our customers typically find it convenient to change the resin every 4 to 8 weeks. Rohm and Haas can assist in determining the appropriate column size to achieve this changeout interval.

The columns should have a port at the bottom for unloading spent resin. Most of the resin will flow out on its own. To facilitate unloading, it may be convenient to incline the screen plate at the bottom of the column. Residual resin can be vacuumed, blown, or transferred out in a slurry.

The column should only be loaded about 25 to 30% full to allow for swelling as the resin absorbs water and methanol traces. Be sure to maintain sufficient headspace, at least 50 cm, above the resin in its fully swollen state (we recommend to budget a swelling of 3 times the original volume for safety reasons) to ensure proper mixing.

SAFETY NOTE : If the relative humidity is less than 60%, an explosion risk does exist due to a potential static discharge when loading fresh AMBERLITE™ BD10DRY™ resin into a vessel that previously contained biodiesel. To minimize any explosion risk it is recommended to rinse the vessel with biodiesel containing less than 2.5 weight % methanol prior to loading fresh AMBERLITE™ BD10DRY™ resin.

If the methanol concentration in the biodiesel is unknown, another possible approach is to use a portable flammable gas detector to determine that a flammable environment is not present in the vessel prior to loading the fresh AMBERLITE™ BD10DRY™ resin.

 

1. Open the top of the vessel. Examine the vessel to make sure that the old resin and biodiesel have been removed.

 

2. Lift the drums to the top of the vessel and load the resin by dumping from the drums into the empty vessel. Make sure that the vessel is not loaded more than 1/3 full with AMBERLITE™ BD10DRY™ resin.

 

3. Close the top of the vessel. Introduce biodiesel (use purified biodiesel if available) from the bottom of the vessel until the resin is covered. Allow a minimum of one hour for the resin to swell in the biodiesel prior to starting the flow.

 

4. Start the flow of biodiesel from the top of the vessel at the specified flow rate (approximately 2 BV/h).

1. Open the valve at the bottom of the vessel and allow the biodiesel to drain out of the bed of AMBERLITE™ BD10DRY™ resin.

 

2. If available, purge the resin bed with nitrogen or compressed air for one hour to remove additional biodiesel that may be in the resin bed.

 

3. Open the manhole and empty the used AMBERLITE™ BD10DRY™ resin into containers. If the resin will be disposed of these containers should be suitable for transporting.

The flow rate should be chosen by the biodiesel producer as a function of the target production capacity. Rohm and Haas will then work with the biodiesel producer to design the columns appropriately. As a general rule, the flowrate should be around 3 liters per hour per kilogram of installed AMBERLITE™ BD10DRY™ (or 0.36 gallons/hour per lb). Thus, if the column contains 1000 kg (2205 lb) of AMBERLITE™ BD10DRY™, the biodiesel flowrate should be around 3000 liters per hour (794 gal/hour).

For small scale (e.g. laboratory) or batch treatment operations, it may be possible to use gravity flow although careful thought should be given to how flowrate is controlled. It is highly recommended, however, that large scale commercial installations should use a pump to control the flow through the column.

AMBERLITE™ BD10DRY™ has a performance range from ambient temperature up to temperatures around 120°C (248°F).

Glycerol breakthrough can be measured using the ASTM test method D-6584. The AMBERLITE™ BD10DRY™ purchased for these columns will not impact your overall resin consumption because when the glycerol removal columns are initially installed they will remove not only glycerol but also catalyst and soap. The resin in the glycerol columns can be replaced from time to time by the spent resin in the downstream purification columns. In practice the glycerol purification resin is replaced every 7 to 10 desorption cycles.

For information on the methanol regeneration procedure, please see the document "Methanol regeneration procedure for AMBERLITE™ BD10DRY™, pdf file: A4 - USletter.

The pressure drop per unit of bed length will depend on the biodiesel linear flow velocity and can be estimated from the graphs below. The pressure drop will not
significantly change as the resin swells during operation.

 

The usage rate for AMBERLITE™ BD10DRY™ will depend on the system design including column configuration and operating conditions. In order to maximize the amount of biodiesel treated, a multiple column configuration is strongly recommended where the lead column is overrun to complete ionic exhaustion by soap. Please see the suggested system layout in the "Industrial Usage" section of the users guide. The removal of free glycerol and soap by AMBERLITE™ BD10DRY™ occurs via two different mechanisms. For glycerol removal, the resin can be regenerated when it is exhausted and can therefore be used for many glycerol adsorption cycles. The removal of soap therefore effectively determines the operating life of a charge of Amberlite BD10DRY and this will depend on the concentration of soap in the crude biodiesel. As a rough guideline, 1 kg of AMBERLITE™ BD10DRY™ will treat between 900 kg and 1600 kg of crude biodiesel for soap removal. The estimated usage rate can be inferred from the following figure. The alkali metal (sodium or potassium) concentration can be calculated from the soap concentration. For example, a soap concentration of 1500 ppm as potassium oleate corresponds to a potassium concentration of 183 ppm. Similarly, a soap concentration of 1425 ppm as sodium oleate corresponds to a sodium concentration of 108 ppm.

 

Yes. AMBERLITE™ BD10DRY™ users consistently produce biodiesel that exceeds all local specifications. The presence of mono- and diglycerides indicates that the transesterification reaction is incomplete. These species often signal a dangerous process inefficiency and must be dealt with at their source where they are easily eliminated by refining process parameters including reaction time, temperature, and catalyst loading.

AMBERLITE™ BD10DRY™ is a non-hazardous material. Please check local regulations regarding disposal. Incineration and land filling are two options that are often adopted.