Reviews in Chemical Engineering, Vol.31, No.4, 345-359, 2015
Modeling, identification, and control for the production of glycerol by the hydrolysis of tallow
Most of the oleochemical industries use glycerol as raw material for its adverse commercial applications in various fields. In spite of many available methods to produce glycerol from tallow, hydrolysis is one of the most feasible and widely used methods that draw the attention of doing more research for ensuring the safe operation, production level improvement, and accuracy of the synthesis process. The synthesis using biochemical methods in immobilized packed column lacks fastness compared to that of chemical means, which is enriched with more research problems. To attain inherent safety, improved process control methods need to be designed, which requires the knowledge of transient dynamics and sensitivity analysis of the process. This paper gives a state-of- the-art review of experimental analysis, mathematical modeling, parametric identification, and integrated control systems using sensors, actuators, and respective multiloop controllers for the production of glycerol and fatty acids from tallow fat through chemical/biochemical hydrolysis.