Recent advances in purification technologies for biodiesel-derived crude glycerol
Omojola Awogbemi, Dawood Desai
Abstract
The need to find a clean, affordable, and sustainable energy source has escalated the production of biodiesel globally, leading to a significant rise in crude glycerol (CG) generation. Applying appropriate techniques purifies and upgrades the huge biodiesel-derived CG into a higher-value resource. The study describes CG as a resource and provides an overview of the trend in global production, trade, and market size of CG. The various physical, chemical, adsorption, liquid membrane, and green solvent-based technologies for CG purification and some of the outcomes of recent studies on CG purification are highlighted. The study concludes that the removal of impurities from CG through appropriate purification techniques enhances the quality and utilisation potential of glycerol, contributes to resource recovery and environmental sustainability. The study recommends appropriate funding, the development of innovative purification technologies, collaboration among government, industry players, and academia, and the enactment of appropriate institutional, legal, and ethical frameworks to combat the identified challenges and upscale CG purification into an industrial and economically viable process. Going forward, more research into eco-friendly adsorbents, automation, artificial intelligence, and other smart technologies is needed for advanced process optimisation, process monitoring and integration, and real-time decision-making in CG purification systems.