IMPROVEMENT OF OIL EXTRACTION PROCESS USING ULTRASONIC TECHNIQUE AS A SECOND-GENERATION BIOFUEL SOURCE

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Lecturer of Agric. Eng., Fac. of Agric., Zagazig Univ. Egypt.

Abstract

The aim of this study was to optimize machine efficiency and the energy content of safflower oil by the ultrasonic technique. The developed machine has an improved effective technique using ultrasonic transmitter system that provide different frequency levels with a regulated power supply. Ultrasonic transmitter system can be described starting from a regulated power supply circuit where a transformer is used to step-down the voltage from 230 to 12 VAC while the voltage is rectified using the full wave bridge rectifier where the rectifier converts the sine waves into a series of positive peaks. The rectified AC voltage is then smoothed or filtered by a capacitor C1, C2 and C3. Finally, the voltage is passed through a regulator LM7809 to create a fixed 9VDC output with less ripple in the voltage. Circuit of the ultrasonic transmitter runs by using a 9VDC regulated power supply. Design of the ultrasonic generator is essentially built a SA555 stable oscillator. This oscillator generates a frequency from 10 to 70 kHz which is used by the transmitting transducer to generate the ultrasonic wave. The performance of the developed machine was studied under four levels of ultrasonic frequency (20, 30, 40 and 50 kHz) and four different feed rates (125, 145, 160, and 170 kg.h-1) and estimate of its effect on the oil yield, machine efficiency and the energy content of safflower oil. The extracted oil was subjected to determine properties of them like: the specific gravity, viscosity, heating value, flash point, carbon residue, and sulphur content. The ultrasonic assisted extraction improves the oil yield by 29.33, % and the highest energy content value was achieved 2034 MJ.h-1 measured at frequency level of 40 kHz and feed rate of 160 kg.h-1. This will be useful to the extraction machine to recover higher amount of the oil yield from same amount of the safflower seeds throughout the operational period. Also, the oil extraction machine has been developed with a machine efficiency of 94.60% as well as decreasing energy consumption by 22.94%.

Main Subjects