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Biodiesel is an important renewable and environmentally sustainable fuel that will help reduce the environmental burden caused by our current reliance on fossil fuels. There are a number of ways to produce biodiesel, with the enzymatic route currently being one of the least favoured at large scale. This is because conventional biodiesel enzyme catalysed reactions and reactors are limited by the heat and mass transfer inadequacies of current reactor designs and the inadequate stability of the enzymes in the current configurations. To overcome these limitations, this project will investigate for the first time using cloth immobilised enzymes for biodiesel production in an innovative spinning cloth disc reactor (SCDR). The SCDR is an extension of the spinning disc reactor (SDR) configuration, developed by Drs Emma and Darrell Patterson. Like a SDR, it uses centrifugal forces to allow an even spread of a thin film across a spinning horizontal disc, but unlike a conventional SDR, this disc has a cloth that has immobilised enzymes on it. This surface is key to increasing the potential of immobilised enzymes in a variety of reactions since it promotes accelerated reactions due to high heat and mass transfer rates and rapid mixing, with the cloth potentially helping to protect the enzymes from excessive hydrodynamic forces as well as promoting mixing and turbulence. This is the first time this has ever been applied to a biodiesel enzymatic synthesis.
Therefore, the overall aim of this project is to set up and experimentally evaluate the application of a spinning disc reactor to biodiesel reactions with immobilised catalysts. This work will extend the current work being performed on lipase immobilised on woollen and cotton cloth with the research groups of Drs Darrell and Emma Patterson. A systematic and holistic approach will be used, correlating the microstructural and mechanical properties of the immobilized catalysts before and after reaction with an experimental evaluation of the reactions and reactors.
Funding Notes:
This will cover the home rate University tuition fees for up to three years with a stipend of £13,600 (tax free) in the first year with an increase in years 2 and 3. This is available for students with British citizenship, UK Settled status, or who are ‘ordinarily resident’ in the UK for three years prior to grant start. Otherwise, only University tuition fees can be covered for EU citizens. Candidates should be expecting, or already holding, a first class or upper second class degree in Chemical Engineering, Chemistry or a related subject.