Glycerin is widely used in many sectors of industry including household chemicals, automobile fluids like antifreeze, animal feed additives, etc. There are several glycerin purification technologies providing different quality and cost features of the product.
We designed technologies to get top-grade technical glycerin with low-cost purification.
Our glycerin purification technologies are based on sorption and microfiltration.
Three-stage sorption includes:
- Addition of purpose-designed powdered activated carbon to crude glycerin. Sorbent volume depends on crude glycerin quality meaning the concentration of impurities to be removed. The average volume of used activated carbon is 2-6% (to glycerin volume).
- Mixing carbon-glycerin mixture with a stirrer.
- Mixture defecating.
(in some cases, mixture heating is used to increase efficiency and speed up the sorption)
After sorption, the carbon-glycerin mixture transfers to the microfiltration unit. Considering the requirement specification, there are two types of microfiltration equipment:
Tangential microfiltration unit consists of tubular microfiltration membranes, a high-performance pump, a control cabinet with a control unit, a set of automation and measuring equipment (includes high pressure and dry running switches, analog pressure sensor, pressure gages), a set of valves and motor-driven crane, piping, and stainless-steel frame. Piping includes evaporator and filtration pipelines, pipelines for supplying washing fluid, and pneumatic pipelines.
A vacuum microfiltration unit includes microfiltration membranes immersed in a container full of fluid to be filtered. The membrane filtrate chamber is connected to a tank, where a vacuum pump enables rarefaction. Affected by rarefaction, filtrate enters this tank by passing through the walls of the cellular membrane. The concentrate received from fluid remains in the tank where the initial fluid was taken, while filtrate is drained from the vacuum tank into the filtrate tank. Hence, nearly all fluid can be isolated as a filtrate, leaving a wet mixture of impurities in the initial tank.
Specifics of used raw products
Raw glycerin obtained after biodiesel production is most frequently used as a raw product for purification.
Crude glycerin used for filtration is crucial to be composed of under 5% fatty acids.
If the amount of fatty acids is higher, it should be removed with applied extra methods.
Economic feasibility
Crude glycerin cost is usually much lower than distilled glycerin price.
Hence, using purified crude glycerin is much more cost-efficient for companies whose product formulation doesn’t require distilled glycerol usage (high cost of distilled glycerol based on an expensive distillation process).
Glycerin purification technologies provided by Litech Aqua LLC enable obtaining top-grade purified glycerin at comparably low cost.
Purified glycerin quality depends on raw glycerin properties, as well as the efficiency and amount of powdered activated carbon.
Our full-service company offers laboratory and pilot research of customer samples thereby ensuring top-grade purified glycerin based on a given sample before purchasing equipment. Test filtrations are indispensable when selecting the proper type and amount of sorbent, assessing the required membrane area, and calculating the detailed process economics for each customer.
To find out the cost assessment and required sample amount for research, please, contact our managers. We’ll do our best to assist you!