Method, apparatus and plant for manufacturing engine fuel

Abstract

A method for manufacturing inexpensive and high-quality engine fuel, from a starting material comprising waste vegetable oils which have been conventionally wasted, is provided. There are provided; a starting-material tank 1 for storing oil / fat therein; a filtering device for filtering out solid components of the oil / fat in the starting-material tank; a first reaction vessel 5 for conducting first cracking by reacting ozone with the oil / fat; an oil / water separation device 4 for separating that water content involved in the cracking reaction, from the oil / fat; a first filtering device 8 for conducting first filtering of the oil / fat; a second reaction vessel 9 for conducting second cracking; a second filtering device 10; an adding device for adding an additive; an impurity adsorbing vessel 12 and a filtering vessel 13 for cooperatively purifying the water phase component from which the oil / fat phase has been excluded by the oil / water separation device; wherein in each of the first reaction and second reaction, there are delivered a reducing agent and polymerization inhibitor into the oil / fat.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD [0001] The present invention relates to a method, apparatus and plant for manufacturing engine fuels having lower boiling points from vegetable oils / fats having higher boiling points, and more particularly to a method, apparatus and plant for manufacturing engine fuels, adapted to exemplarily recycle used vegetable oils / fats having higher boiling points into diesel engine fuels having lower boiling points. BACKGROUND ART [0002] Reserves of fossil fuels or mineral oils such as petroleum, cork or natural gas buried in the earth are obviously limited, and are worried to be exhausted within several tens of years at the recent digging and consuming pace. [0003] It has been officially reported that the annual amount of waste vegetable oils (waste cooking oils) in Japan is totally 400,000 tons including about 200,000 tons from companies such as food service industries and food processing factories and about 200,000 tons from general homes. [0004] Relatedly, it has been conf...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

"The present invention provides a method, apparatus, and plant for manufacturing engine fuel with improved performance. The method involves adding a reducing agent and a polymerization inhibitor to a higher-boiling-point vegetable oil / fat, causing the oil / fat to crack and reform into a lower-boiling-point oil. The cracking reaction is caused by ozone, which is introduced into the oil / fat and reacts with it to form a higher-boiling-point compound. The resulting oil / fat is then filtered to remove solid components and the polymerization inhibitor. The method allows for efficient production of high-quality engine fuel with better performance."

Problems solved by technology

Reserves of fossil fuels or mineral oils such as petroleum, cork or natural gas buried in the earth are obviously limited, and are worried to be exhausted within several tens of years at the recent digging and consuming pace.

However, the methyl esterification technique has the following problems.

Namely, the production cost of fuels is high, because of the large amount of methanol or ethanol to be delivered into waste vegetable oils.

The cost of plant construction becomes also high, in view of fire / accident prevention against the volatilities and lower flashing points of methanol and ethanol.

Further, such characteristics of methanol and ethanol also cause a problem of job safety.

Meantime, the fuels obtained in this manner tend to discharge combusted gases such as including large amounts of formaldehyde, acrolein, and benzene, thereby easily causing troubles on pistons, piston rings and in heads of engines.

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