Design of a Small Scale Biofuels Plant for Internal Combustion Engine

Abstract

The concern of finding an alternative fuel to replace the gasoline is demanding due to the price increment and environmental aspects. Choosing the alternative fuel became a controversial subject since many considerations, methods, cost and continuous improvement are essential. Three well known processes in production of ethanol are; pre-treatment, fermentation and post-treatment. The design of a portable bio-fuels plant will be presented with all the design equations and selected materials. Considering scaling down the plant requires conceptualizing the procedures and integration the units since the plant is meant to fit in a truck or mobile platform. Integration of units raises the need for knowing that some of processes will be merged to a single unit. The overall dimensions are 6 m by 3 m in term of length and width respectively. The plant contains three storage tanks, two fermentation reactors where the integration of units takes place pervaporation and pure ethanol tank. All the dimensions will be provided as each part will be elaborated.