Crude glycerol

Pachauri, N. and He, B. (2006) Valued-added utilisation of crude glycerol from biodiesel production a survey of current research, American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers Annual Meeting, Portland, USA. 

Abstract The telomerization of butadiene with alcohols is an elegant way to synthesize ethers with minimal environmental impact since this reaction is 100% atom efficient. Besides telomerization of butadiene with methanol and water that is industrially developed, the modification of polyols is still under development. Recently, a series of new substrates has been involved in this reaction, including diols, pure or crude glycerol, protected or unprotected monosaccharides, as well as polysaccharides. This opens up the formation of new products having specific physicochemical properties. We will describe recent advances in this field, focusing on the reaction of renewable products and more specifically on saccharides. The efficient catalytic systems as well as the optimized reaction conditions will be described and some physicochemical properties of the products will be reported. 

Most crude glycerol is shipped to refiners in standard tank cars or tank wagons. Imported cmde arrives in bulk, in vessels equipped with tanks for such shipment, or in drums,... 

Palkovits R, Nieddu I, Klein-Gebbink RJM, Weckhuysen BM (2008) Highly active catalysts for the telomerization of crude glycerol with 1,3-butadiene. ChemSusChem 1 193-196... 

Kraft et al. (2007) patented a process converting crude glycerol into chlorinated compounds, such as dichloropropanol and epichlorohydrin. Solvay and Dow are developing a process to convert glycerol to the epoxy resin raw material epichlorohydrin (Anonymous, 2007 Tullo, 2007). 

After pH adjustment the crude glycerol is submitted to methanol recovery by vacuum distillation. The bottom product is usually a glycerol-water solution of about 50%. Its concentration can be increased up to 85% by vacuum evaporation. The water is recycled to the washing step. Normally, the glycerol is shipped to a specialized refiner, where the purity can be increased further to 99.5 and 99.7% by ion-exchange techniques and vacuum distillation. 

In the past, glycerol was produced mainly from propene via allyl chloride and epi-chlorohydrin, a process developed by I. G. Farben and in operation since 1943. Today, glycerol is obtained almost completely as a coproduct in oleochemistry (fat splitting) and biodiesel production (transesterification) with 110 kg crude glycerol or 100 kg pure glycerol per ton of biodiesel [37]. With the rise in biodiesel production, the availability increased while the price decreased drastically by approximately 66% within 15 years in the United States [38]. 

Citric acid Biotechconsult Intended Crude glycerol ... 

Crude glycerol was derived from a biodiesel coproduct stream consisting of 40% glycerol, 34% FFA/FAME, and 26% water. 

To comprehend the mechanics behind the synthesis of both PHB and mcl-PHA from both bacterial strains, we monitored the utilization of the individual components (glycerol and FFA/FAME) that made up the crude glycerol... 

TABLE 7.2. Substrate utilization by P. oleovorans NRRL B-14682 and P. corrugata 388 when grown on crude glycerol."... 

Crude glycerol cone. (wt%) Glycerol FFA / FAME fraction Glycerol FFA / FAME fraction... 

---