Synthesis and Characterization of Furfural from Microalgae
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Date
2021-01
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
This research has mainly focused on the synthesis of furfural from microalgae biomass and optimizing the process parameters using Response Surface Methodology (RSM). The raw material microalgae were characterized for proximate and biochemical compositions and the HPLC analysis of the acid hydrolyzed sample of algae shows sufficient amount of pentose’s, particularly xylose with concentration of 12.89g/100mL, which indicates its abundance for furfural synthesis. Furfural production was carried out by hydrolysis of algal biomass with dilute Sulfuric acid. NaCl has been used as pentosane conversion enhancer and subsequent dehydration of pentoses to furfural occurred in the process at relatively low temperature. Response surface methodology, Central Composite experimental design, was applied to investigate and find optimum furfural synthesis parameters. Reaction temperature (110-160 ℃), Acid concentration (0.1M-1.5M) and Time (30-90 min) has been selected as the major study parameters. Furfural yield has been examined as experimental response. A total of 20 experiments were conducted, besides the proximate and compositional analysis of the raw material. The important synthesis parameters which affect the yield of furfural were investigated using the analysis of variance (ANOVA). Reaction temperature was found to be the most significant parameter which has a significant effect on the response. The regression analysis showed good fit of the experimental data to the second-order polynomial Quadratic model with coefficient of determination (R2) value of 0.9973 and model F-value of 409.63. The model was found to be significant as its Predicted R2 of 0.9822 was in close agreement with the Adjusted R2 of 0.9949. The individual and interaction effect of the selected parameters on the yield of furfural was studied and optimum conditions were established. A temperature of 150 ℃, an Acid concentration of 1.5 M and reaction time of 45 min were found to be the optimum conditions and the validation experiment resulted in optimum furfural yield of 46.37% with a 2.6% deviation from the optimum value determined by the design expert software. FTIR result confirm the presence of conjugated carbonyl groups at a band intensity of 1670 cm-1 and aldehyde functional groups at wave length of 2816 cm-1 and 2850 cm-1. Also the HPLC analysis of the product confirms the presence of furfural. Generally, the results found in this study showed that viability of microalgae biomass as an alternative option for the production of furfural.
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Keywords
Dehydration, Furfural, Hydrolysis, Microalgae, Pentose, Xylose