Naveenkumar Rajendran

This study aimed to assess the technical feasibility and economic viability of cellulose nanocrystals produced from a marine animal, i.e., tunicate. An industrial-scale process simulation model was developed with a 50 tonne/day production capacity of tunicate-based cellulose nanocrystals, at 1% solid. The system boundary included preprocessing and pretreatment of raw tunicate, acid hydrolysis, filtration, and concentration. The minimum selling price of tunicate-based cellulose nanocrystals (1% solids) in the baseline scenario was estimated to be $1.16/kg, and it could be reduced to $0.77/kg by improving the process design parameters in alternative scenarios. Increasing the production scale was identified as an alternative option to further reduce the production costs and minimum selling price of tunicate-based cellulose nanocrystals. The outcomes of this research would help establish the performance targets needed to reach the viability of cellulose nanocrystals production from tunicate at the commercial scale.

Biodiesel has gained increasing attention worldwide as an alternate source of energy that directly replaces fuels from fossil fuels. In this study, the transesterification process is reported using the heterogeneous nanocatalyst Mg-doped CaO for biodiesel production from Sapindus trifoliatus oil. The characterization methods such as FT-IR, XRD, and SEM were used to characterize the synthesized Mg-doped CaO catalyst. Both experimental and conventional methods were adopted to optimize the process parameters in biodiesel production. A maximum biodiesel conversion of 91.75% was obtained under the optimized conditions of temperature 58°C for a time of 73 min with 4% (w/w) catalyst concentration and 15:1 methanol:oil molar ratio. The low reaction temperature and time helped to develop the economically feasible process. For three cycles, the synthesized nanocatalyst was reused efficiently. The biodiesel methyl ester function groups were determined by GC-FID. The biodiesel physicochemical properties were also analyzed and compared with the ASTM standards.