BIOMASS OR GLYCEROL TO BIOFUELS

In the past decade, many advances were made towards the production of alternative fuels. Biodiesel is one such alternative fuel which has received much attention and research. However, its production also creates an abundance of crude glycerol, which is a waste product that has little value and is costly to purify. Therefore, a process which can utilize crude glycerol deserves analysis. In our project, a process was designed for the manufacture of various high value products from glycerol. This process used catalyst technology and reaction data from Virent Energy Systems, Inc. to convert crude glycerol feed into the products of hexane, butane, ethane, propane, and hydrogen. Our proposed process design yields a NPV of $238,317,900.00 and an IRR of 8.18%.