Biodiesel development

Domestically, methyl esters are made from soybean oil, spent frying oils, and inedible animal fats. Palm oil is used in Southeast Asia, and rapeseed in Europe. Although appreciable in quantity, supplies of such materials actually are small compared with the amount of TAG that would be required if significant quantities of methyl esters were used in fuels. Governmental support of biodiesel development has included funding of research and demonstration projects, and reducing or eliminating state or federal taxes collected for its fuel use. In turn, this funds the amount of methyl esters that can be... 

Progress on biodiesel development can be followed on the National Biodiesel Board (NBB), Jefferson City, MO, Web site (www.biodiesel.org), and the United Soybean Board (USB) St. Louis, MO, Web site (www.unitedsoybean.org) for soybean oil based fuels also Render Magazine, Camino, CA (rendermagazine.com) has kept that... 

U.S. Biodiesel Development New Markets, Economic Research Service, USDA, 1997. 

Sinha, S., A. K. Agarwal, and S. Garg. 2008. Biodiesel Development from Riee Bran Oil Transesterifieation Process Optimization and Fuel Characterization. Energy Conversion and Management 49 (5) 1248-1257... 

FAeSTER An enzymic transesterification process for making biodiesel, developed by Piedmont Biofuels and operated in North Carolina since 2012. 

Sinha, S., Agarwal, A.K., Garg, S., 2008. Biodiesel development from rice bran oil transesterification process optimization and fuel characterization. Energy Conversion and Management 49, 1248—1257. 

Reports have shown solid catalysts for esterification of FFA have one or more problems such as high cost, severe reaction conditions, slow kinetics, low or incomplete conversions, and limited lifetime. We will present research describing our newly developed polymeric catalyst technology which enables the production of biodiesel from feedstock containing high levels (> 1 wt %) of FFAs. The novel catalyst, named AmberlysH BD20, overcomes the traditional drawbacks such as limited catalyst life time, slow reaction rates, and low conversions. 

During the last decade many industrial processes shifted towards using solid acid catalysts (6). In contrast to liquid acids that possess well-defined acid properties, solid acids contain a variety of acid sites (7). Sohd acids are easily separated from the biodiesel product they need less equipment maintenance and form no polluting by-products. Therefore, to solve the problems associated with liquid catalysts, we propose their replacement with solid acids and develop a sustainable esterification process based on catalytic reactive distillation (8). The alternative of using solid acid catalysts in a reactive distillation process reduces the energy consumption and manufacturing pollution (i.e., less separation steps, no waste/salt streams). 

In our process development efforts PNNL demonstrated the life of the Recontaining catalyst using both pristine feed and feed from biodiesel desalted glycerin (see Figure 34.10). 

Development of Alternate Fuels for Transportation, Electrical Power Generation and various Industrial Processes (e.g., biodiesel from renewable sources such as vegetable oils). 

BP has investments in an ethanol plant with DuPont and Associated British Foods. It is also investing in cellulosic ethanol research and developing jatropha as a biodiesel feedstock. BP and DuPont are planning a biobutanol demonstration plant and BP would like to eventually convert their ethanol plant to biobutanol production. BP has a 400 million investment with Associated British Foods and DuPont to build a bioethanol plant in the U.K. that may be converted to biobutanol. It has spent 500 million over 10 years at the Energy Biosciences Institute in California to research future biofuels and 9.4 million over 10 years to fund the Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in India to study the production of biodiesel from Jatropha curcas. It also has a 160 million joint venture with D1 Oils to develop the planting of Jatropha curcas. 

Cereals can yield around 1500-3000 litres of gasoline equivalent (lge)/ha sugarcane, 3000-6000 lge/ha sugarheet, 2000-4000 lge/ha vegetable oil crops, 700-1300 litres of diesel equivalent (lde)/ha and palm oil, 2500-3000 lde/ha (IEA, 2007). In addition, there are novel biofuel production processes under development, for example biodiesel from marine algae, which are claimed to have a 15 times higher yield per ha than rapeseed. 

For biodiesel, catalytic or bio-catalytic technologies need to be either developed or improved in the following areas ... 

Notably, several types of liquid biofuels exist or are under development and have the potential to replace fossil fuels, especially in the transportation sector. The focus is on organic fuels such as ethanol, butanol, methanol and their derivatives ETBE, MTBE, which can be produced by fermentation, but also biodiesel and liquid biogas, which can provide interesting biomass-based alternatives to diesel and LPG. 

Environmental concerns have been raised in recent years dealing with greenhouse gases produced from the transportation industry. A contributing cause of these emissions is the combustion of fossil fuels such as diesel, gasoline and oil. A strong enviromnental initiative has pushed for the development of alternative fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel in pure and blended forms (Demirbas, 2008). 

The first biodiesel initiatives were reported in 1981 in South Africa and in 1982 in Austria, Germany and New Zealand. Since then, the production of this alternative fuel has seen enormous developments, particularly in Europe, where it reached 5.7 millions tons in 2007. It is expected to increase further to fulfill the recent decision of the European Parliament to substitute 10% of transport fuels with biofuels by 2020. According to assessments of the European Community, to reach this target, the production of bioethanol, biodiesel and second-generation biofuels should reach 36 Mtep (tep = tonnes equivalents petrol) in 2020. 

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