Dehydration of Waste Edible Oil by Hydrocyclones

Abstract

Waste edible oil is the high quality material from which biodiesel fuels can be made. The water droplets in wasted edible oil affect the processing courses and the product quality. A new process of waste edible oil dehydration based on hydrocyclone technology has been designed. Preliminary industrial experiments have been carried out to prove the feasibility of dehydration using a hydrocyclone. The effects of several dimensionless units, such as Reynolds number, Euler number, and pressure drop ratio, were studied. An increase in Reynolds number will decrease the pressure drop ratio. With an increase in the Reynolds number, the Euler number increases gradually. Under the condition that the Reynolds number of inlet is ranging from 5,000 to 5,800, the water concentration can decrease from 0.5–3.0 vol.% to less than 0.30 vol.%.

Keywords:

• Hydrocyclone separation
• Dehydration
• Waste edible oil