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Article
A Cellular Manufacturing Process For A Full-scale Biodiesel Microreactor
Journal of Manufacturing Systems
  • Richard E. Billo, Missouri University of Science and Technology
  • C. Ryan Oliver
  • Rachaneewan Charoenwat
  • Brian H. Dennis
  • Paul A. Wilson
  • John W. Priest
  • Heather Beardsley
Abstract

A cellular manufacturing process was developed for fabrication and assembly of a full-scale biodiesel microreactor capable of producing biodiesel fuel at the rate of 2.47 L/min and at a capacity of over 1.2 million liters of fuel per year. The scale-up of the microreactor was done through fabrication of over 14,000 individual microchannel laminae, and assembly of these laminae into a hierarchical system of modules and manifolds, thus duplicating many times over the intensification of the reaction rate per reactor volume that occurs in a single microchannel lamina. The work describes the design of the microreactor, the production process to fabricate and assemble the microreactor, the design of the manufacturing cell, and the testing of the microreactor to verify its performance.

Department(s)
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Keywords and Phrases
  • Biodiesel microreactor,
  • Biodiesel processing,
  • Cellular manufacturing,
  • Process intensification
Document Type
Article - Journal
Document Version
Citation
File Type
text
Language(s)
English
Rights
© 2023 Elsevier, All rights reserved.
Publication Date
10-1-2015
Publication Date
01 Oct 2015
Citation Information
Richard E. Billo, C. Ryan Oliver, Rachaneewan Charoenwat, Brian H. Dennis, et al.. "A Cellular Manufacturing Process For A Full-scale Biodiesel Microreactor" Journal of Manufacturing Systems Vol. 37 (2015) p. 409 - 416 ISSN: 0278-6125
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/richard-billo/4/