Browsing by Author "Ortega Maldonado, Melissa Isabel"

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Biodiesel Production by Transesterification of Recycled Oil Catalyzed with Zinc Oxide Prepared Starting from Used Batteries
(2023) Seminario Calle, Doménica Paulina; Álvarez Lloret, Edgar Paúl; Duque Sarango, Paola Jackeline; Cisneros Ramos, Juan Fernando; Pinos Vélez, Verónica Patricia; Ortega Maldonado, Melissa Isabel; Echeverria Paredes, Paulina Alejandra; Montero Izquierdo, Iván Andrés
The consumption of batteries and cooking oil have been increasing. Most used batteries are disposed of incorrectly, leading to health and environmental problems because of their composition. In a similar form, cooking oil, once used, is often released by the discharge reaching the wastewater, polluting soil, and water, which affects its treatment. In Ecuador, these environmental passives are recollected and stored without further treatment, which is a temporary and unsustainable solution. To address this issue, the circular economy concept has gained increasing attention. In this study, zinc oxide was prepared from discarded batteries using the hydrometallurgical method to use as a catalyst; it achieved 98.49% purity and 56.20% yield and 20.92% of particles presented a particle size of 1–10 nm. Furthermore, the catalyst morphology was investigated in an SEM, which showed that particle size ranged from 155.69 up to 490.15 nm and spherical shapes. Due to its characteristics, the obtained catalyst can be used in the industry instead of the zinc oxide obtained by mining processes. These processes are known to produce heavy contamination in the ecosystems and human health. Additionally, a zinc oxide lifecycle in the environment was analyzed through a material flow analysis (MFA), taking into consideration two paths, one assuming the disposal of used batteries and the other assuming the recycling of zinc. Biodiesel was produced with a heterogeneous catalyst. This took place with a transesterification reaction with used cooking oil, ethanol, and zinc oxide (ZnO) as catalysts. The biodiesel obtained had the following characteristics: 37.55 kJg−1 of heating power, 0.892 gcm−3 of density, 4.189 mm2/s of viscosity, 0.001% of water content, and a 70.91% yield. Furthermore, the energy consumption in biodiesel production was quantified, giving a total of 37.15 kWh. This kind of initiative prevents that waste from becoming environmental pollutants and potential health risks by giving them a second use as a resource. Moreover, turning waste into a valuable product makes the processes self-sustaining and attractive to be implemented.
Obtención de un catalizador de óxido de cinc a partir de pilas C-Zn usadas para la elaboración de biodiesel con aceite vegetal reciclado
(Universidad de Cuenca, 2022-06-01) Seminario Calle, Domenica Paulina; Ortega Maldonado, Melissa Isabel; Pinos Vélez, Verónica Patricia
In the present research work supported zinc oxide catalyst was made out of spent Zn-C batteries in order to elaborate biodiesel with recycled vegetable oil. To carry out this process recollection of batteries were made first at the company ETAPA EP, after they were dismantled and their components were separated (zinc, manganese oxide and carbon rod). The zinc casing had a hydrolysis process that consisted of acid lixiviation, purification, crystallization and calcination; resulting in a zinc oxide catalyst out of this process. The carbon rod was treated with nitric acid. Then the catalyst was impregnated in the rod by solvent evaporation. After, recycled vegetable oil had a treatment also obtained from ETAPA EP; which consisted of filtering, washing and drying. In order to obtain biodiesel treated vegetable oil and ethanol was used in a molar ratio of (6:1), the reaction took at 230ºC for 1 hour with constant agitation. The zinc oxide was used as a catalyst in 5% W/W both supported and unsupported. Catalyst was characterized by UV-Visible spectrophotometer, which measured the particle size. Zinc oxide purity was determined by an atomic absorption spectrophotometer resulting in 98.49%. In addition, yield of the catalyst production was 56%. Likewise, BET (Brunauer, Emmett y Teller) analysis has been done in order to know the superficial area and pore size of the carbon rod, obtaining 1.927 m2/g and 0.7894 cm3/g respectively. In biodiesel samples, calorific power, water quantity, viscosity, density and yield were determinate. Having as results 37 553 J/g, 0.005%, 4.1887 mm2/s, 0.8916 g/cm3 and 70.908% respectively. All of those results are within in the range given by the regulations INEN 2482, ASTM B 100 and EN 590. It is worth to say that blank did not meet the aforementioned parameters by the regulations, additionally its yield was of 5%. The research showed that a high purity catalyst was obtained and the process can be optimized to improve the yield. The catalyst doesn´t need size reduction because the pores´ support are in macro scale. A better result was obtained at density, viscosity and reaction yield when a supported catalyst was used, but not so with calorific power. Biodiesel yield was higher compared with other authors that used the same catalyst