Adsorptive purification processes can be applied to both feedstock and biodiesel to serve as a refining &ldquo;safety net.&rdquo; Employing such processes represents a cost for value consideration that should be well-understood before making this significant, but necessary investment. A biodiesel production facility must have a clear understanding of the production hurdles it will face in order to be successful. Adsorbent purification considerations are one such hurdle. Feedstock management (including procurement, quality, and refining) contributes to more than 80 percent of the process costs for making quality fuel. Refining practices employed to purify oil can also reduce free fatty acids, soaps, trace metals, organic and inorganic phosphorus compounds, and water. Refinement of triglycerides upstream of conversion to biodiesel is often utilized to accomplish more effective purification, ease of final product separation and better final product quality for both biodiesel and glycerin products. Each stage of the classical refining process is focused on incremental improvement of oil quality. The underlying goal of the combined operations is to produce high-quality finished oil by stripping detrimental contaminants from crude oil to yield a final product as close to 100 percent triglycerides as is economically practical. The bleaching process is one of the critical unit operations within the refining process and is responsible for removing the oil soluble impurities that tend to negatively affect production efficiency and finished oil quality. Bleaching, by simple definition, is a filtration process dependent on the physical and chemical interaction of a sorbent, usually a silica or silicate based adsorbent mineral, with an oil or fat to improve its quality. The adsorptive process is dependent on processing conditions that impact the rate at which a sorbent finds, interacts, and locks onto a contaminant. The efficiency of an adsorption process is interdependent on variables that increase the probability of interaction between sorbent particles and contaminants and, therein, the kinetics of adsorption. The more critical of these conditions include contact time, oil temperature, oil moisture content and vacuum. More effective sorbents will have a high capacity to reduce or remove a broad spectrum of unwanted adulterants and have adequate porosity to adsorb the contaminants without impeding flow through a filter bed. Oil-Dri&rsquo;s Select line of specially modified, natural silicate adsorbents can be utilized to purify the feedstock of oils and fats. These adsorbents also help minimize water usage and are used as a sorbent for &ldquo;dry wash&rdquo; purification of biodiesel fuel after conversion of oil or fat to methyl esters. Beyond adsorbent purification considerations, a clear understanding of other major production hurdles is critical in order for a biodiesel production facility to succeed. Other factors that will impact success include feedstock oil quality, level of additional refining needed, process diversity in formulation options, plant optimization, and a drive toward minimal waste streams. Before making any significant investments, it is best to consider how to manage their impact on production economics. Contemporary biodiesel facilities need: 1) the flexibility to process a diverse range of feedstocks that may vary widely in fatty acid profile as well as level of contamination, and 2) the mindset to produce not one, but two quality product streams: fatty acid methyl esters and the glycerin byproduct. Proper implementation of good refining practices including adsorptive purification is key for allowing production flexibility in a demanding market. --------------------------------- Author: David Brooks Chief Research Scientist, Oil-Dri Corp. david.brooks@oildri.com

David Brooks, Chief Research Scientist, Oil-Dri Corp. 

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Adsorptive Purification: A Flexible Safety Net for a Demanding Market

U.S. EPA released its renewable identification number (RIN) quality assurance program (QAP) proposed rule in late January.&nbsp; The proposal establishes guidelines for third-party auditors and provides obligated parties an affirmative defense against civil liability for retiring invalid RINs. It includes three options: Option A, Option B, and the &ldquo;buyer beware&rdquo; approach currently in effect. Options A and B provide obligated parties with an affirmative defense against civil liabilities. Under Option A, if the biodiesel producer were unable to replace invalid QAP-A RINs they generated, the proposal requires the QAP auditor to bear the replacement cost. Under Option B, the obligated party that retired the invalid QAP-B RINs would be responsible. Option A requires a much more rigorous and comprehensive audit procedure than Option B; the former involves near real-time, ongoing auditing and reporting while quarterly auditing suffices for the latter. QAP-A replacement by the auditor, as the proposed rule exists now, must be backstopped by one or more replacement mechanisms: a RIN escrow account, a RIN bank or a financial instrument. Byron Bunker with EPA says obligated parties want QAP-A RINs, but notes QAP-B is less oversight at less cost to producers.&nbsp;
Option A limits the auditor&rsquo;s replacement obligation to 2 percent of RINs audited over a five-year period. Under Option B, there is a limited exemption for obligated parties (for years 2013-&rsquo;14 only) to not have to replace up to 2 percent of their total renewable volume obligation if they retire invalid QAP-B RINs. This was put in the proposal to encourage obligated parties to buy RINs again. The start date is Jan. 1 even though the rule came out in late January. Bunker says the QAP provider can do a retrospective audit back to Jan. 1 by auditing the plant&rsquo;s records. This is a unique situation in that, for this year, EPA is finalizing a proposal, but for 2014 on, the actual final rule will be in effect. A public hearing will be held March 19, and comments must be posted within 30 days after the hearing. Bunker strongly suggests biodiesel industry stakeholders post comments to help make the rule as sound as possible.
------------------------------ Ron Kotrba Editor Biodiesel Magazine rkotrba@bbiinternational.com

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PROPOSED  QAP RULE

Preventing discharge of biodiesel processing wastes into the environment contributes significantly to production expenses. Processors incur these costs, rather than discarding waste products more cheaply or easily for at least two reasons. First, processors are a part of their community and seek to be good corporate citizens. Second, federal law authorizes state and federal regulators to set and enforce limits on permissible discharges from industrial plants. Federal regulation of water pollution originated in 1948 through enactment of the Water Pollution Control Act. The act initially focused federal support on state efforts to regulate pollutants detrimental to human health. Since then, the act has been amended to focus regulatory authority in the federal government and to more broadly address pollutants detrimental to environmental quality. Under the act, discharge of pollutants is regulated by means of a permitting system, commonly known as NPDES (National Pollution Discharge Elimination System). Crudely simplified, a producer who seeks to discharge a pollutant into waters that are subject to federal regulation (essentially all surface waters, including oceans, lakes, rivers, streams, storm runoff and municipal water treatment facilities) must obtain prior permission for the discharge from the appropriate regulatory agency.&nbsp; The current statutory scheme lodges ultimate NPDES permitting authority in the federal government (more specifically, in U.S. EPA), but allows states to obtain federal permission to exercise that authority in EPA&rsquo;s stead. EPA has granted that authority to most states, subject to federal oversight. Whether a particular state exercises NPDES, permitting authority can be determined from the EPA or state environmental regulation agency websites. The NPDES permitting process begins when a legal person submits an NPDES permit application for a project projected to discharge a pollutant into a federal waterway (e.g., a corporation that seeks to operate a biodiesel plant). The application is reviewed by an agent of the regulatory agency, who is called a &ldquo;permit writer.&rdquo; The permit writer reviews the application for completeness and accuracy, requests any additional information required of the applicant and develops a draft permit.&nbsp; The draft permit proposes limits on discharges of the pollutant(s) referenced in the application. Those limits are commonly based on a combination of (i) the nature of the pollutant, (ii) technological feasibility of pollutant discharge limits, (iii) consistency of pollutant discharge limits in the draft permit with overall concern for water quality in the body of water into which discharge is proposed, (iv) economic feasibility of pollutant discharge limits, (v) whether the application represents a new source of the pollutant or an expansion of an existing source, (vi) interference or obstruction of a public water treatment facility that might follow from discharge of the pollutant(s) therein, and (vii) any other conditions specific to the particular applicant or application.&nbsp; In the draft permit, the permit writer sets forth written bases he has arrived at and justifies the conditions to be imposed upon discharge of the pollutant by the applicant if the draft permit is finalized. That written justification is commonly called the fact sheet or the statement of basis. A draft permit also includes discharge monitoring and reporting requirements customized to the project, any other conditions that the applicant must satisfy for the specific project, and some conditions that are substantially the same for all permits. A permit applicant can (and should) correspond with the permit writer during development of a draft permit. Draft permits are also subjected to public review through the permitting authority, and any interested party may submit comments during a limited period. Based on comments received from the applicant and the public, the permitting authority modifies the draft and issues a final permit to the applicant. Although permit writers often rely on guidance provided by EPA for established industries, EPA has not yet developed specific guidance for the biodiesel industry. As the industry grows and matures, EPA can be expected to develop such guidance. Because this guidance is developed in consultation with industry participants, biodiesel operators should watch for opportunities to offer their thoughts and experience to EPA or state regulatory officials. ---------------------------------- Author: Gary D. Colby Patent Attorney, Dilworth Paxson LLP 215-575-7075 gcolby@dilworthlaw.com

Gary D. Colby, Patent Attorney, Dilworth Paxson LLP 


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Overview of Wastewater  Regulation for Biodiesel Processing 

National Renewable Energy Laboratory chemist Earl Christensen presented preliminary results from an ongoing B100 and biodiesel blends stability study at the National Biodiesel Conference &amp; Expo in Las Vegas Feb. 4-7. The study was commissioned to determine what it would take to store B100 and blends for one to three years. Two B100 samples were tested, both treated with antioxidant at the production site. Feedstocks were unknown. Thirteen weeks of aging simulates one year. After five weeks, one sample dipped below 2.5 hours on Rancimat and two different aliquots were treated with 200 ppm of TBHQ and 500 ppm of BHT to &ldquo;reset&rdquo; them; they lasted another 5 weeks. The other sample lasted 26 weeks in an underground storage simulation (two years) with no further adulteration. After lasting 26 weeks, that same sample dipped to 2.5 hours on Rancimat and was reset with stabilizer. It was stable for another 13 weeks, &ldquo;which was really surprising,&rdquo; Christensen said. New B100 samples were drawn for the blend tests. Two biodiesel samples were taken prior to additization by the producer. NREL dosed each with enough antioxidant to pass the three-hour and six-hour Rancimat tests, then each was blended at 20 percent with two different diesel fuels, hydrotreated and hydrocracked, to produce eight B20 samples. Christensen said NREL is only two-thirds through the 39-week test, and while the data is preliminary, it implies that almost every B20 sample remained on spec for Rancimat testing even after the simulated two years of underground storage. Two of the eight B20 samples were off spec for Rancimat but Christensen said those were blended with B100 dosed to pass the three-hour test, and they were blended in two different diesel fuels. The two samples that failed Rancimat could be treated with antioxidant to reset the fuels. &ldquo;Essentially after two years, almost every B20 sample is still an on-spec fuel,&rdquo; he said. Eight B5 samples under the same conditions were tested, and every one of those has remained on spec for the two simulated years.

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Positive results from long-term stability study 

The U.S. EPA approved biodiesel from camelina oil to qualify as both biomass-based diesel and an advanced biofuel under the renewable fuel standard in February, meaning the agency has determined that biodiesel made from camelina oil exceeds the 50 percent threshold of greenhouse gas emissions reductions compared to baseline diesel fuel. EPA published its original final rule approving the camelina pathway in January 2012 but later withdrew the rule after receiving several adverse comments. &ldquo;This decision adds to the growing list of biodiesel feedstocks that meet the EPA's standards for advanced biofuel and gives us yet another option for producing sustainable, domestic biodiesel that displaces imported oil,&rdquo; says Anne Steckel, vice president of federal affairs with the National Biodiesel Board. &ldquo;This is important for our energy security, for our economy and for addressing climate change, and we thank the EPA for conducting a thorough and fair review.&rdquo; The EPA also clarified the definition of renewable diesel to explicitly include jet fuel.

Camelina oil pathway approved under RFS2

The Spanish government announced in February that it has approved the downward revision of its mandatory consumption targets for biodiesel from 7 to 4.1 percent, according to a document from the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism. &ldquo;It is considered appropriate to revise the mandatory consumption targets for biofuels in 2013 and thereafter, setting targets that minimize fuel prices and ensure some stability in the sector,&rdquo; states the document. &ldquo;These new goals will minimize the price of fuel and [provide] time [to] analyze technological developments necessary to achieve the [EU] targets for 2020 of 10 percent penetration of renewable energy in transport.&rdquo;&nbsp;

Spain revises biodiesel mandate down from  7 to 4.1 percent

Teresa Alleman, a senior chemist at National Renewable Energy Laboratory, shared the latest biodiesel fuel quality survey results at the National Biodiesel Conference &amp; Expo in Las Vegas Feb. 4-7. NREL obtained B100 samples from 53 producers and 14 terminals from August 2011 through February 2012. Alleman said the samples collected represent 94 percent of the biodiesel volume in the marketplace today, and 97 percent of those samples met requirements in the latest version of ASTM D6751. &ldquo;This is a huge improvement over previous years,&rdquo; she said. In 2006, only 40 percent of samples were on spec, a major drop from 2004 when 85 percent met the then-current ASTM spec. In 2004, however, far fewer producers existed with only a fraction of productive capacity compared to 2006. The &rsquo;06 samples showed massive failures for total glycerin, which Alleman said led to quality issues and filter clogging in Minnesota shortly after its B2 mandate went into effect, spurring balloting and passage of the Cold Soak Filtration Test&mdash;what Alleman called one of the best improvements to the specification and biodiesel quality. Since 2004 there have been 15 modifications to D6751. All of the latest samples were on spec for total and free glycerin, and the average oxidative stability was measured at 9.5 hours. For metals, most samples were below the detectable limits with only one failure; the same sample also failed in other areas. CSFT times were also noteworthy, with all but one sample coming in below 200 seconds, with the remaining sample still within spec below 360 seconds. Even though cloud point is not regulated in D6751, Alleman noted that there was a wide range in the samples, with the average at 2 degrees Celsius (35.6 degrees Fahrenheit). &ldquo;Diesel fuel has the same range,&rdquo; she said. While the No.1-B grade voluntary specification with a 0.4 percent mono and year-round 200-second CSFT time limit was not in effect when the samples were taken, Alleman said 90 percent of the biodiesel volume on the market today would meet it.

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Latest NREL quality survey shows 97 percent on spec

The National Biodiesel Board recently welcomed the proposed rule from the U.S. EPA establishing the 2013 advanced biofuels requirements under the renewable fuel standard (RFS) at 2.75 billion RINs. The U.S. biodiesel industry is poised and ready to help meet these requirements, and to supply more domestic fuel choices to consumers. Biodiesel has been a bright spot in the RFS, exceeding production requirements for two consecutive years. Last year, the industry produced nearly 1.1 billion gallons of fuel, with plants in nearly every state in the country supporting more than 64,000 jobs. For this year, the EPA&rsquo;s RFS proposal calls for an overall advanced biofuel requirement of 2.75 billion RINs. Within that total, the biomass-based diesel requirement, which has already been finalized, is 1.28 billion gallons (1.92 billion RINs). Refiners have the option of using biodiesel or other EPA-designated advanced biofuels to help fill the remaining overall advanced biofuel pool, and many experts are predicting that biodiesel will play an increasing role in doing so this year due to the return of the biodiesel tax incentive and favorable blending economics. It is important to note that 2.75 billion RINs actually requires substantially less than 2.75 billion gallons of advanced biofuels. For example, biodiesel is an advanced biofuel with a RIN value of 1.5, so each gallon of biodiesel produced is multiplied by a RIN value of 1.5. Therefore, if only biodiesel is used to fill the entire advance pool, only 1.83 billion gallons of biodiesel would be required. Today, there are more than 200 biodiesel plants registered with the EPA, representing a combined production capacity in excess of 3 billion gallons, more than enough capacity to meet the requirements of the advanced biofuel program in 2013. For the record, the overall renewable fuel volume statutorily required for this year is 16.55 billion RINs. Under the program, the 16.55 billion can be met by using 2.75 billion RINs of advanced biofuels and 13.8 billion RINs of conventional ethanol. The biodiesel industry is already the leading producer of advanced biofuels in the country, accounting for more than 82 percent of required advanced production last year, and more than 90 percent since the program began in 2010. The biodiesel industry is adding new feedstocks and building capacity every year, and the RFS will only help continue that growth. Because of the importance of the RFS to the biodiesel industry, NBB continues to work with the EPA on a regular basis to make sure that the 200-plus member companies that have invested time, effort and capital resources into this industry are represented. NBB is working to submit formal comments to EPA on the proposed advanced biofuel rule now. EPA will then address all of the comments submitted and provide a final rule, expected to come sometime early this summer. The RFS is already working as intended. Growth in technology, innovation and capacity in the U.S. biofuels sector has led to increased green jobs, growth in renewable fuel use, reduced emissions and a more diverse transportation energy supply. Biodiesel and other advanced biofuels are making significant contributions to our energy supply and we must stay the course to continue this success. Anne Steckel, Vice President of Federal Affairs, National Biodiesel Board

Anne Steckel, Vice President of Federal Affairs, National Biodiesel Board

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Biodiesel Industry Poised to Help Fill Advanced Biofuel Requirement

BiodieselNow, a new mobile application offered by the National Biodiesel Board, gives users the ability to quickly find biodiesel fueling stations, track fuel purchases and earn rewards. Users can stay up-to-date on the latest biodiesel news, including federal and state regulations, quickly locate biodiesel fueling stations and easily log their biodiesel usage along the way. Every gallon of fuel purchased earns biodiesel reward points that are redeemable toward biodiesel merchandise in NBB&rsquo;s online store. &ldquo;This app puts America's advanced biofuel in the palm of your hand,&rdquo; said Doug Whitehead, director of operations of NBB. &ldquo;We are very excited to be able to participate more actively in the mobile communication world and use the latest technology to get even more people tuned in to biodiesel. As the biodiesel industry continues to advance and consumption grows, we feel it&rsquo;s important to help users find those retail locations and improve communication between NBB and the industry.&rdquo; Introduced at the 2013 National Biodiesel Conference, the app is available for both Apple and Android devices and provides valuable mapping information on biodiesel fueling stations across the U.S. There are hundreds of retail stations making biodiesel blends available to the public both at filling stations and fuel docks. The BiodieselNow app could not have been launched at a better time and makes finding those stations easier than ever before. To download the free app, visit the iPhone App Store or Google Play for Android devices and search &ldquo;BiodieselNow.&rdquo; Download the app today to begin finding biodiesel now.

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New biodiesel app tracks fuel purchases, offers rewards 

With a mission to provide education and research for the advancement of biodiesel and carry out projects that benefit the industry, the National Biodiesel Foundation recently held fundraisers during the National Biodiesel Conference &amp; Expo. This year&rsquo;s NBF silent auction and raffle raised more than $20,000 that will be used to directly fund biodiesel projects. The NBF also hosted its first quarter meeting where it welcomed new directors Mike Cunningham from the American Soybean Association and Matt Jaeger from Emergent Green Energy. Jaeger was also elected as the new treasurer.&nbsp;&nbsp; During the February meeting, NBF directors voted to support three new projects this year: 1) the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association&rsquo;s 5th Annual Biofuels Science and Sustainability Tour; 2) the Illinois Biodiesel Sales Tax Economic Impact Study; and 3) the California Environmentalist Midwest Soybean and Biodiesel Production Tour. The foundation partners with organizations such as the National Biodiesel Board, the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, and state soybean boards to leverage resources to their fullest potential. Funding sources include grants from entities such as the U.S. DOE, donations from the industry through fundraising efforts and private contributions from companies such as Harms Oil, Monsanto and US Coachways. To contribute to the NBF or learn more about its activities, visit them at www.biodieselfoundation.org.

The NBF silent auction held at the National Biodiesel Conference & Expo helps raise money for biodiesel education and research projects.

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National Biodiesel Foundation funds support industry projects

As biodiesel production continues to build momentum, the industry&rsquo;s trade association has set a new 10-year vision to help achieve continued growth. The National Biodiesel Board&rsquo;s new vision is for biodiesel production to equal 10 percent of the on-road diesel market by 2022. Eight years ago NBB set a goal to be 5 percent of the diesel fuel supply by 2015, a goal then viewed as aggressive. With a billion gallons produced in 2011 and 2012, the biodiesel industry is well on its way to achieving that goal and possibly hit it earlier than expected. &ldquo;No one could have predicted the changes and challenges of this industry, but we have been deliberate and intentional as we map our potential,&rdquo; said NBB CEO Joe Jobe. &ldquo;This year, biodiesel marks 20 years for the trade association, 10 years for the conference and lays out the vision for the next 10 years to come.&rdquo; Announced recently at the National Biodiesel Conference &amp; Expo, the 10x22 goal envisions a more diversified future energy portfolio that would include biodiesel making up 10 percent of the diesel fuel supply. This goal is benchmarked to the on-road volumes but expected to be used in various blend levels in various applications. The goal is intended to be a stretch but yet attainable. &ldquo;It is not about replacing every drop of petroleum&mdash;it is about continuing to diversify transportation energy so we can meet our needs affordably and sustainably,&rdquo; Jobe said. &ldquo;As the industry&rsquo;s trade association, it is our duty to help maintain responsible industry growth, and setting long-term goals are an important part of that.&rdquo; The new vision was presented to NBB members last fall along with revisions to the NBB&rsquo;s strategic plan, both of which were finalized by members and announced in February.

NBB sets new vision for industry growth

As the National Biodiesel Board and the biodiesel industry celebrate their 20th anniversary, NBB recognizes biodiesel champions at the annual Eye on Biodiesel awards presentation. The 2013 winners are: Industry Partnership: John Maniscalco, New York Oil Heating Association. New York City has become a shining example of biodiesel support as sustainability efforts continue to move forward. New York City recently passed landmark legislation: starting October 2012, all heating oil sold in the city must contain at least 2 percent biodiesel. Bioheat will now replace up to 20 million gallons of petroleum a year. The efforts of Maniscalco and the support provided by the New York Oil Heating Association made this unprecedented legislation possible. Innovation: Leon Schumacher, University of Missouri. One of the first researchers to jump into biodiesel with both feet was Leon Schumacher, a professor of agricultural engineering at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Schumacher led the first engine tests of biodiesel in the U.S. including a 1991 Dodge Ram, which can still be seen on the university campus today. Biodiesel has become one of the most tested fuels on the planet. It began with this early research and continues today. Inspiration: Las Vegas Biodiesel User Group&mdash;Gary H. Weinberg, Western Sierra Services; Ron Corbett, City of North Las Vegas; Frank Giordano, Clark County School District; James Morwood, Las Vegas Valley Water District; Dan Hyde, City of Las Vegas (retired). This group of biodiesel pioneers championed the alternative fuel against all odds in the 1990s to help it become the established fuel it is today. The Las Vegas Biodiesel User Group was among the first users of biodiesel in the nation. These fleets worked to overcome resistance, remove technical obstacles, and even successfully challenged large diesel equipment manufacturers to support biodiesel. &ldquo;In the beginning, biodiesel had its struggles to gain support, like any new fuel,&rdquo; said Ron Corbett, Clean Cities Coordinator for Las Vegas. &ldquo;Those of us who were early champions are gratified to see biodiesel finally gaining the momentum it needs to become the fuel of choice.&rdquo; Influence: The United Soybean Board. As the National Biodiesel Board and the biodiesel industry celebrate two decades of biodiesel, NBB recognizes that the biodiesel industry would not have been possible without the United Soybean Board&rsquo;s leadership and financial commitment through the soybean checkoff since 1992. Its continued support is instrumental in the growth of the biodiesel industry.

The United Soybean Board was presented with the Eye on Biodiesel Influence Award for its continued commitment and support of the biodiesel industry.

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Highest biodiesel awards honor history, lay path forward  

More than 1,100 biodiesel industry representatives attended this year&rsquo;s National Biodiesel Conference &amp; Expo in Las Vegas. Check out blog.biodieselconference.org for more images, interviews and videos from the 2013 conference.&nbsp; Be sure to save the date now for Jan. 20-23, 2014, when the conference heads to San Diego.

Former U.S. Sen. Byron Dorgan encouraged the biodiesel industry to remain relentless against detractors as part of his keynote address.

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Members of the NBB Governing Board were recognized for their service to the biodiesel industry.

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Student scientists representing universities across the country received scholarships from NBB to attend this yearâ€™s conference. Many 
presented posters on their biodiesel research. 

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The vehicle showcase featured biodiesel-capable vehicles from light-duty, medium-duty, and heavy-duty manufacturers and included local biodiesel user Clark County School District.

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U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack praised the biodiesel industry for its role in economic development and energy security in his closing keynote address.

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Biodiesel event of the year  showcases industry momentum

In Bali, Indonesia, U.K.-based Green Fuels commissioned its turnkey biodiesel facility for Caritas Switzerland, an NGO focused on socioeconomic development in disadvantaged communities around the world. Green Fuels installed its 3,000 liter (792.5 gallon) per day FuelMatic GSX 3, the newest and smallest of its processors, which offers the same fully automated technology as the larger FuelMatic GSX processors but at a lower price. It&rsquo;s the first biodiesel plant on Bali as well as the first time used cooking oil (UCO) has been recycled on the island. Caritas established a nonprofit social enterprise to run the biorefinery. One of Caritas&rsquo; primary goals is taking UCO out of the island&rsquo;s food chain. A survey of more than 340 hotels and restaurants found that 50 to 60 percent of UCO was sold to waste pickers and then resold to and reused by informal food stalls. Caritas has initial commitments totalling 1,000 liters of used cooking oil per day from about 150 hotels and restaurants. ------------------------------ Gulf Hydrocarbon Partners Ltd. has partnered with Akash Energy Inc. to reopen the Lone Star Terminal in North Houston offering biodiesel and renewable diesel. The terminal is located near Bush Intercontinental Airport and supports 24/7 loading. The Lone Star terminal has a total capacity of 6.7 million gallons, of which Gulf Hydrocarbon has leased 420,000 gallons of storage for biodiesel. The facility allows bobtail trucks and transport trucks to add biodiesel fuel to their diesel fuel mix. At the Lone Star Terminal, the drivers preset an Accuload meter for the requested volume, connect the Scully overfill protection system and their hoses, and then flip a switch to start pumping the biodiesel. The terminal is always open and accessible through a card key system, and the truck loading rack has a bay dedicated for biodiesel. All biodiesel at the Lone Star terminal meets the latest ASTM D6751 standards. ------------------------------ Incbio, the Portuguese engineering company specializing in fully automated industrial ultrasonic biodiesel plants, is supplying DC Biofuels with a 7.5 MMgy biodiesel plant, equipped with Incbio&rsquo;s ultrasonic reactors and solid catalyst acid esterification technology, to produce biodiesel from used cooking oils with up to 25 percent free fatty acids. Incbio recently introduced solid catalyst technology for acid esterification of high FFA feedstock into its plants. The Incbio-DC Biofuels deal was closed through mediation and support from International Procurement Tools. DC Biofuels also partnered with Tri-State Biodiesel subsidiary Beltway Biodiesel LLC, to launch a combined and expanded WVO collection, outreach and marketing effort that targets the capital region&rsquo;s restaurants, large food service institutions, and others in the area. ------------------------------ Alfa Laval recently introduced its Advanced Glycerol Treatment system, a prefabricated, turnkey biodiesel pretreatment solution for virtually any existing transesterification plant, scalable for a capacity of 400 to 40,000 gallons per day. The AGT system allows for source material flexibility as it increases vegetable and animal byproduct value by reducing the free fatty acids content down to 0.8 percent, resulting in higher quality oil, which is then easily processed into biodiesel fuel. The system also provides flexibility on the plant output side. Processors can tap off the biorefined oil at different stages of production and upgrading. The modular, prefabricated AGT pretreatment plant is characterized by low operational costs, high yield, heat recovery, low waste and emissions. No catalyst is needed, and it provides optimum use of surplus biodiesel glycerol output. ------------------------------ Eslinger Biodiesel Inc. is scheduled to receive $6 million from the California Energy Commission&rsquo;s Alternative and Renewable Fuel and Vehicle Technology Program to build a commercial biodiesel production facility in Fresno. According to the CEC, the first phase of the $32 million refinery is expected to be operating within a year of funding, producing 5 MMgy of biodiesel made from waste vegetable oils and animal fats. Eventual production is expected to be 45 MMgy. The output, according to the CEC, will be shipped by pipeline to commercial blending facilities and is slated to be presold to companies obligated to purchase carbon credit offsets. In addition to high-quality biodiesel, the plant will produce pharmaceutical- and technical-grade glycerin. Pipeline transport of fuel and waterless processing will result in near-zero production emissions at the facility. ------------------------------ Biodiesel Experts International unveiled its new, fully automated, skid-mounted enzymatic biodiesel processing system. After two years of development work to hone the process and build the first unit, the firm is now working to fill orders from customers around the globe. The systems can be ordered in various production volumes, with the smallest pilot unit rated at 50 liters (13.2 gallons) per hour. The pilot unit, dubbed Precision E50D&mdash;where E stands for enzymatic, 50 represents liters per hour and D means distillation&mdash;comes equipped with a centrifuge to preclean the feedstock, premix tanks, stirred reactors, settling tanks, a soap centrifuge, a wiped film evaporator to distill the biodiesel, metering pumps, automated valves, various sensors (pH, temperature, level, pressure, flow meters), and an automatic control panel. The systems can process any level of free fatty acids. The pilot unit costs around $100,000 and includes Israeli partner TransBiodiesel&rsquo;s methanol-resistant enzyme technology, branded TransZyme. Estimated per-gallon operational cost is between 85 cents and $1, including the enzymes.

A BIODIESEL FIRST: Thorsten ReckerzÃ¼gl of Caritas, left, and James Hygate of Green Fuels helped commission the first biodiesel plant on Bali.

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Alfa Laval's  Advanced Glycerol Treatment system

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Business Briefs - Companies, Organizations & People in the News

Since 2004, there have been 15 modifications to ASTM D6751, the biodiesel quality specification, according to Teresa Alleman, senior chemist at National Renewable Energy Labs in Golden, Colo., providing evidence for the assertion that the biodiesel quality spec is ever-tightening. The latest iteration in the evolution of D6751 is the passage of the voluntary No.1-B grade of biodiesel, establishing the first-ever monoglyceride limit at 0.4 percent and mandating a 200-second, year-round cold soak filtration test time limit. Some in the industry suggest that the only way many producers will be able to manufacture a fuel that meets these new targets, in addition to any future improvements to the quality spec, is through employing distillation on the backend of the production process&mdash;particularly if low-cost, low-quality feedstocks are utilized. &ldquo;The American Petroleum Institute is pushing for tighter and tighter specs on biodiesel, therefore, making producers have to put in additional equipment,&rdquo; says Ernie DeMartino, president and CEO of Pearland, Texas-based Biodiesel Experts International. &ldquo;And the margins are so tight already, what they want to do is push them out of business.&rdquo; It&rsquo;s not only the ASTM standards that are increasingly tightening. Customer purchase requirements also dictate end-product fuel quality and, indirectly, process changes or upgrades. For instance, there is no color spec in D6751, so what does it matter if distillation produces a &ldquo;water-white&rdquo; biodiesel? &ldquo;The color spec is dictated by the customer,&rdquo; DeMartino says. &ldquo;Just like there are customers that will only buy biodiesel made from soy, there are customers that will only buy water-white biodiesel.&rdquo; Brian Mattingly, general manager for Washakie Renewable Energy, a 10 MMgy biodiesel production facility with distillation capabilities in Plymouth, Utah, says, &ldquo;From a market standpoint, a lighter-colored fuel is nice for customers to be able to see. Generally, the color of your feedstock does impart some color onto the finished fuel, so if you&rsquo;re starting with a very dark feedstock, you&rsquo;re not necessarily going to end up with a water-white fuel, but distillation does cause a marked improvement in the color of the fuel.&rdquo; As the industry has progressed, refined soybean and other virgin vegetable oils have gotten too expensive for many producers to use and remain profitable, except for those with captive stocks. &ldquo;People have moved more toward lower-quality but more economical oils, such as rendered oils, animal fats and used cooking oils, which tend to be higher in free fatty acids and darker in color,&rdquo; says Kirk Cobb, senior process design engineer with Superior Process Technologies Inc., a subsidiary of Baker Commodities. &ldquo;After the fuel is produced it&rsquo;s oftentimes absolutely black&mdash;it looks like coffee. It might be in spec, but marketing a really dark, undistilled biodiesel may be a real challenge.&rdquo;
Another reason for the move to distillation is the continued tightening of ASTM specifications to lower light metals content and the ability to remove sulfur to comply with the ultra-low sulfur diesel regulations, says Doug Smith, R&amp;D and quality assurance director at Baker Commodities. &ldquo;Whether the biodiesel is not in spec due to incomplete reaction or contaminants from lower-grade feedstocks, distillation is a proven way of bringing that biodiesel back within specifications in one process unit operation,&rdquo; Smith says.&nbsp;
Mike Powers, an engineer with Pfaudler Inc., says, &ldquo;In general, with the current ASTM biodiesel spec, you can have, in my opinion, a very poor-quality fuel and still meet those specifications.&rdquo; He believes that the spec will, and must, continue to evolve. &ldquo;At some point distillation will be, certainly for the lower-priced feedstocks, a requirement,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t come up with a process that wouldn&rsquo;t benefit from it. It does not cure all of the potential problems in terms of other contaminants&mdash;some of the components are actually difficult to separate with distillation&mdash;so your chemistry needs to be working up front of distillation to begin with.&rdquo; &nbsp;
There is not one right answer to what distillation setup a producer should use, or if they even need to distill at all. Derek Masterson, product sales manager with Minneapolis-based Crown Iron Works, says while CIW is happy to provide any size and variety of distillation system tailored for a customers&rsquo; specific needs, it&rsquo;s a highly energy-intensive process, &ldquo;which is why we don&rsquo;t recommend it as a first choice,&rdquo; he says. Masterson says for producers seeking to improve the quality of their fuel, they should fully investigate whether adding an additional reaction step in-process might get them where they want to be, before making the decision to install distillation equipment. &ldquo;If they can tweak the pretreatment or transesterification reaction and get a better product than what they have now, maybe distillation isn&rsquo;t necessary,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Those kinds of things have to be thought about. We sell the equipment, and it&rsquo;s by far the most expensive equipment to buy and run compared to other pretreatment and things you could possibly do, so it needs to be shown to be necessary.&rdquo;
Distillation is not just a simple unit operation, says Cobb. &ldquo;There are many different options and process parameters to consider: there are distillation towers with reboilers, wiped film evaporators, vacuum distillation, atmospheric distillation, steam-heated, hot-oil heated, single-stage flash units and multistage fractionation columns,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;If you&rsquo;re distilling methanol there&rsquo;s steam-heated with no vacuum, but many stages of fractionation may be required. In contrast, distilling methyl esters will require thermal oil heating under vacuum, but little or no fractionation. It takes someone who&rsquo;s familiar with all of these variations to put a plant design philosophy together.&rdquo; &nbsp;
Mattingly says B100 distillation is set up to be the very final step in WRE&rsquo;s process. &ldquo;We do two stages of reaction, then settling after each, then we go through ion exchange resin and then we demethylate, and after that we go into day tanks so we can check the overall quality of our fuel,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;And it is at that point when we decide if we need to distill our product.&rdquo; &nbsp;
In a biodiesel facility there are three potential streams to distill or evaporate&mdash;methanol (wet or dry), biodiesel and glycerin&mdash;and each of these materials typically requires a different set of operating conditions. Cobb says if you have wet methanol from water washing, a fractionating column is needed with a lot of dry methanol reflux going in at the top of the column to strip out the wash water at the bottom of the tower. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s all done at fairly low temperatures because the methanol comes off the top of the column at 148 degrees Farenheit, and the water going out the bottom is basically boiling water, 220 degrees,&rdquo; Cobb says. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s an atmospheric column, steam-heated, but it uses a lot of energy due to all the reflux needed to dry the methanol, and methanol has a relatively high heat of vaporization (475 to 500 Btu/lb, depending on conditions). In my opinion, when you design a plant, you can go the traditional route with water wash and methanol recovery, or you can avoid water washing, strip dry methanol out of the biodiesel first, with little or no reflux required, and then distill the biodiesel under vacuum conditions using a thermal oil heating system.&nbsp; Overall, this approach will use a lot less process energy, and results in higher quality product.&rdquo;
Masterson says imagine a cup of layered liquid with the top being the lightest, followed by the middle product, with the heaviest layer at the bottom. You can put three straws in to remove the different stages of liquid, which would represent a more sophisticated, expensive fractionating column, &ldquo;but it&rsquo;s sure a heck of a lot easier not to do it that way,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;So removing the methanol is always step one.&rdquo; It&rsquo;s surely a lot easier to wash the fuel at low temperatures and atmospheric pressure followed by demethylation then distillation rather than pushing everything through distillation. If that were done, Masterson says, &ldquo;now you&rsquo;d have exactly the same thing, with no monoglycerides, so you&rsquo;d have to figure out how to strip them one at a time, the more volatile first, or you&rsquo;d have to design a distillation column that&rsquo;s a lot more complicated to take off the top, middle and bottom.&rdquo;
Biodiesel distillation is a different animal than stripping methanol, Cobb says. &ldquo;Once the methyl esters have been stripped of any methanol or water and you want to distill the biodiesel, that is done under vacuum at 2 to 3 millimeters Hg (mercury), so you&rsquo;re under vacuum and approaching 400 degrees,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Methyl esters have a heat of vaporization of only 125 to 130 Btu/lb so distilling biodiesel uses less energy than recovering dry methanol from wet methanol. But you have to do it under vacuum.&rdquo; For classical biodiesel distillation column, there&rsquo;s no fractionation involved. Product is pushed through the reboiler and everything that is volatile evaporates; there is typically structured packing above the reboiler vapor inlet so the pitchy materials on the bottom cannot be carried out the top of the column into the distilled methyl esters. But this can&rsquo;t be done with typical 150-psig steam, which will only produce temperatures of 360 degrees at most. To distill biodiesel, high temperatures are needed. Thus, a hot oil heater system (typically operating at 500 degrees) is required, which must be included for projects, or added to existing plants thinking about installing biodiesel distillation.
&ldquo;With classical distillation there in an inherent pressure drop associated with moving the vapors through the column,&rdquo; Powers says. &ldquo;The wiped film evaporator basically eliminates this pressure drop because the vapors travel radially inward a very short distance before collapsing on the internal condenser. All of the liquid within the wiped film evaporator is exposed to the deep vacuum level so the operating temperature is minimized. The rotating entrainment separator between the heat transfer surface and the internal condenser allows us to operate with a high heat flux while maintaining distillate purity so, with a relatively small evaporator, we can drive a high throughput. The space requirements for a wiped film evaporator system will be less than a classical distillation system. The capital cost may be slightly higher for the wiped film evaporator system but the energy cost will be less and the recovery will be higher.&rdquo;
Cobb says it&rsquo;s not inconceivable to use a wiped film evaporator for distilling biodiesel, &ldquo;but that&rsquo;s your high-volume material and wiped film evaporators get pretty expensive,&rdquo; he says, adding that it may be more economical to use&nbsp; a standard distillation tower for biodiesel. Nevertheless, depending on the feed oil quality, both options are worthy of consideration. However, if there are any residual monos in the crude methyl esters, they may distill out with the product stream from a wiped film evaporator. In contrast, using a conventional column with a bit of structured packing and a bit of reflux, monoglycerides can then be removed with a small bottoms cut. &nbsp;
&ldquo;Some folks considering biodiesel distillation may be concerned about yield loss associated with the distillate bottoms produced,&rdquo; Cobb says. &ldquo;But, the distillate bottoms may actually generate less yield loss than those associated with water washing, and the resulting soap formation and emulsions they create.&rdquo; Masterson asks, &ldquo;What do you do with the stuff you have left over? It doesn&rsquo;t disappear. Let&rsquo;s say you have a yield of 95 percent of better biodiesel and you have 5 percent left over, it&rsquo;s probably mostly methyl ester, probably saturated methyl esters, maybe some C18s, monos, what do you do with that? It&rsquo;s burnable, it has Btu value, there&rsquo;s no doubt about that because it was already biodiesel anyway, it probably would have been an acceptable product, so if your biodiesel process was so bad that you&rsquo;re pushing all your problems to the end, I don&rsquo;t know what you&rsquo;re going to do with that material.&rdquo; Powers adds that plants seeking to expand and already have classical distillation columns may minimize their yield loss by installing a wiped film evaporator in series to take the concentrated bottoms from the distillation column and run it through the wiped film evaporator to maximize sellable product.
For plants already outfitted with biodiesel distillation that are seeking to expand production rates, the vapor loads, reboiler and condenser heat duties for the column must be evaluated. &ldquo;If you have an existing distillation tower that&rsquo;s designed for a certain capacity with a certain vapor load, you simply can&rsquo;t go beyond that vapor load or you could start entraining the nonvolatile pitchy materials (color bodies, dimers, polymers, and other heavy boilers) that you are trying to take out,&rdquo; Cobb says. &ldquo;Vapor density and vapor velocity must all be considered when calculating what&rsquo;s called the &lsquo;F-factor&rsquo;, or flooding factor, and depending on the type of structured packing used in the column, this dictates the range of F-factors in which the column design can operate.&rdquo; He adds that if someone were batch distilling, and they wanted more capacity, they could switch to continuous distillation and get more annual capacity out of an existing column.
The glycerin byproduct can also be distilled to significantly increase its market value. The glycerin stream is typically less than 10 percent of the volume of the biodiesel, but it may also contain the most impurities. &ldquo;First, the methoxide catalyst, which is very soluble in glycerin, must be neutralized with acid,&rdquo; Cobb says. &ldquo;This forms inorganic salts. After stripping methanol from the glycerin, the crude glycerin can be vacuum distilled, but due to the presence of salts and other nonvolatile solids, such as soaps, glycerin is typically distilled in a wiped film evaporator. The glycerin will distill out the top of a wiped film evaporator and the salts and other solids will drop out the bottom. A wiped film evaporator has a rotating device inside that constantly wipes the solids off the heat transfer surface to keep it clean, and drives the solid materials out the bottom; the glycerin bottoms may typically be 20 percent of the feed, and the distilled glycerin may amount to an 80 percent yield.&rdquo; Glycerin distillation would also be under vacuum, not quite as deep as biodiesel distillation, perhaps 5 to 10 mm Hg rather than 2 mm Hg for the biodiesel, Cobb says.
&ldquo;Glycerin is the dirtiest of the crude streams,&rdquo; Powers says. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s got all of the salts and soaps and chemicals. There are those who run glycerin through distillation columns, but I can only assume that they have all kinds of maintenance issues with putting something so cruddy into a distillation column.&rdquo;&nbsp; Powers says there are three stages in a biodiesel plant where wiped film evaporators are suited to perform: on the frontend for stripping of free fatty acids, biodiesel distillation, and glycerin distillation.
Artisan Industries has a piece of equipment called the Rototherm V, which the company says can distill biodiesel and glycerin at the same time. The equipment can also be used in an initial stage prior to distillation to remove the methanol. &ldquo;[Rototherm] recovers 99.9 percent of the solvent for recycl[ing] back to the reactor,&rdquo; Artisan Industries&rsquo; website states. Biodiesel Magazine reached out to engineers at Artisan Industries for information, but did not receive a response. &ldquo;If necessary, the solvent and water removed in this step can be vapor-fed directly to a distillation column to purify and dehydrate the solvent. In the second step, a Rototherm is operated at low absolute pressure to vaporize the glycerol and methyl esters plus any remaining traces of light ends. The vapor from the Rototherm flows out through a vapor/liquid separator to knock back any entrained liquid and enters a special, large void-space, low-pressure drop condenser using tower water as coolant, where the methyl esters and glycerin condense. The residual solvent and water vapor flow through a direct contact (barometric) condenser to a shared vacuum system, which uses sprays of cool recirculating methyl esters to minimize the loss of [methyl esters] and glycerin to the vacuum system. The condensed methyl esters and glycerin flow to further processing downstream to separate the phases and remove any remaining free glycerin from the fuel.&rdquo; While many agree this is a novel approach, some express concern that distilling the biodiesel and glycerin together may lead to a reverse reaction in which glycerides and methanol are formed from the glycerin and methyl esters.
Ultimately, like many stages in biodiesel production, most experts say there&rsquo;s no wrong answer in how to go about employing distillation at a biodiesel plant. &ldquo;I can tell you which way is more economical than other ways,&rdquo; Masterson says, &ldquo;but it could be the wrong answer for a specific plant because of the fats or quality of materials used. So we, Crown Iron Works, and other vendors like us are happy to tailor the plant for the customer. We don&rsquo;t have off-the-shelf distillation plants that we say, &lsquo;use this and everything will be fine.&rsquo; I don&rsquo;t think that&rsquo;s the right way for the biodiesel industry in any step, whether it&rsquo;s pretreatment, transesterification or distillation.&rdquo; &nbsp;
In the end, pinpointing a timeline for return on investment may not be so easy for a biodiesel plant looking to install distillation capacity. &ldquo;Now that there&rsquo;s a second grade of biodiesel, there may be an answer for that,&rdquo; says Masterson, who adds that the price differential between No.1-B and No.2-B probably would not be incentive alone to purchase and operate distillation. &ldquo;If you need to use lower-cost feedstocks to survive, however, then I don&rsquo;t think it&rsquo;s a return-on-investment question, it&rsquo;s a stay-in-business question.&rdquo;&nbsp;
 ------------------------------| Author: Ron Kotrba Editor, Biodiesel Magazine 218-745-8347 rkotrba@bbiinternational.com

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The best path depends on the individual plant and who you ask

The Many Faces of Distillation

Mayor Kasim Reed has a vision for his city of Atlanta: green the sprawling metropolis and make it a healthier, more sustainable place to live.&nbsp; One of the ways Reed intends to accomplish this goal is to eliminate the gross misconduct of some area grease haulers who illegally dump trap grease&mdash;fats, oils and greases (FOG) collected from restaurants&mdash;into Atlanta&rsquo;s sewer system to avoid paying the high tipping fees for proper disposal. &ldquo;I know the mayor has been very aggressive in addressing those things that will lead to continuing his movement toward a greener and more sustainable city,&rdquo; says H. Lamar Willis, post three at-large councilman for the city of Atlanta. &ldquo;One of the biggest harms for the city of Atlanta is that we&rsquo;ve had a tremendous issue with those who collect trap grease and other FOGs and dump them into our sewer system.&rdquo; According to the U.S. EPA, sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs) are discharges of raw sewage from municipal sanitary sewer systems. SSOs can release untreated sewage into basements or out of manholes and onto city streets, playgrounds and into streams before it can reach a treatment facility. SSOs are often caused by blockages or breaks in sewer lines. A major culprit for sewer line blockage is FOG. The EPA states that the U.S. sewer system infrastructure is worth more than $1 trillion. SSOs present major health and environmental risks. Because SSOs contain raw sewage, they can carry bacteria, viruses, parasitic organisms, intestinal worms and inhaleable molds and fungi. The diseases they can cause range from stomach cramps and diarrhea to life-threatening ailments such as cholera, dysentery, infections, hepatitis and severe gastroenteritis, the EPA states. More than 2 million people in the U.S. become ill from 10 billion gallons of SSOs annually and the exposure to raw sewage.&nbsp; &ldquo;We are still under a consent decree with the federal government that required us to do a complete overhaul of our water sewer system,&rdquo; Willis tells Biodiesel Magazine. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re about $2.5 billion into that overhaul. We&rsquo;re one of the few cities around the country that did not get federal aid to do that. There are major cities that have done this prior to us, and they received major aid&mdash;we did not get that. And because we did not get that, we had to add the cost onto our rates. We had to increase our water rates and, of course, our citizens haven&rsquo;t been completely happy about that.&nbsp; But part of the problem is that ultimately our water sewer issues have a lot to do with what people are putting into it, which includes fats, oils, greases, and all of those things that help clog our water sewer system.&rdquo;&nbsp; One potential solution to help protect Atlanta&rsquo;s sewer system was presented to Willis last year&mdash;one that tied him up in an ethics investigation of which he was later cleared. According to reports from Atlanta Progressive News and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Willis had lunch with Paul Marshall, managing director for an Atlanta-based startup FOGFuels, a company seeking a contract with the city to establish a trap grease collection center on city property at one of Atlanta&rsquo;s wastewater treatment facilities in order to convert the material to biodiesel and have an available outlet for all of the water and other contaminants once separated from the lipids. It was reported that after the luncheon, Marshall sent an email to FOGFuels employees stating that the company had a new team member in Willis. After Willis had voted to approve a no-bid (&ldquo;sole-source&rdquo;) contract with FOGFuels, Atlanta Progressive News Editor Matthew Cardinale filed an ethics complaint that halted negotiations between FOGFuels and the city of Atlanta. The investigation ultimately determined Willis had no financial interest or stake in FOGFuels and cleared him of any wrongdoing. Biodiesel Magazine has spoken with Kevin Olson, FOGFuels chief financial officer, a number of times in the past several months,&nbsp; to discuss progress in FOGFuels&rsquo; contract negotiations with the city of Atlanta and the startup&rsquo;s grease collection and biodiesel production business plan. &ldquo;Our go-to-market approach is to co-locate with a wastewater reclamation facility, a piece of property owned by city, and take over a portion of that to dump our high-strength wastewater into their digesters,&rdquo; Olson says. FOGFuels plans to divert approximately 50 MMgy of trap grease from being illegally disposed of in Atlanta&rsquo;s sewer system. From that 50 MMgy of trap grease, the lipid yield is expected to be about 5 percent. This equates to the delivery of about 140,000 to 150,000 gallons of trap grease FOG a day. Georgia Tech chemistry professor Arthur Ragauskas, FOGFuels&rsquo; senior scientific advisor, says his role with the company is to provide &ldquo;a sound, academic, intellectual perspective&rdquo; on what FOG is and its variability, and the chemistry that will be encountered when processing brown grease to biodiesel. Trap grease is mostly water, followed by a varying amount of fatty acids, depending on who&rsquo;s providing it. Following that, Ragauskas says inorganic components in the material include trace amounts of copper, iron, lead, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, zinc, nitrogen chloride, calcium and sulfur. &ldquo;The amounts vary depending on where the samples are sourced,&rdquo; he says. Organic compounds may include acetone, low-molecular chlorinated materials from chlorinated drinking water and biological runs, plus trace amounts of cleaning solutions.&nbsp; &ldquo;Tipping fees are probably the biggest operating line-item cost of a trap grease hauler,&rdquo; Olson says. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s why they choose to improperly or illegally dispose of it&mdash;they&rsquo;re saving a lot of money to do that. This is why we&rsquo;re providing a lower-than-market tipping fee, to encourage them to stay in compliance as well as to save money on their tipping fees.&rdquo; To encourage grease haulers to pay tipping fees, albeit lower than market price, by disposing of their loads at a future FOGFuels collection and processing center rather than illegally dumping it for free into the city&rsquo;s sewer infrastructure, the company has established the Green Waste Haulers Association. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a lot of economic incentive for them to join,&rdquo; Olson says, over and above the lower-than-market tipping fees. These incentives may include discounts on general liability insurance, discounts on repairs and replacement tires, and similar measures. Also, members in the GWHA will receive a &ldquo;proper badge of operation,&rdquo; Olson says. &ldquo;They can say, &lsquo;I&rsquo;m a member of this organization, which means I&rsquo;m an ethical waste hauler in compliance with all appropriate rules and regulations.&rdquo; Olson says now that the contract with Atlanta is set, FOGFuels plans to begin construction third quarter of this year on its $14 million grease collection and biodiesel production facility scaled to process 50 MMgy of trap grease into 2.5 MMgy of biodiesel. He says it will take eight to 12 months to complete construction. When asked how FOGFuels intends to finance the facility, Olson only says, &ldquo;We have a number of different options.&rdquo; Not only does Olson hold project financing mechanisms close to his vest, but he and Ragauskas are also tight-lipped about the conversion process they intend to use, other than saying the so-called FOG2D process, which is trademarked and patent-pending, combines two existing technologies already proven commercially. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s really the coupling of technologies that&rsquo;s important,&rdquo; Ragauskas says. In addition to material cleanup as it comes in and a &ldquo;robust pretreatment process,&rdquo; Ragauskas says, &ldquo;the free fatty acids have to be converted over to some kind of ester prior to doing transesterification under alkaline conditions. And you can either use methanol, or any form of alcohol, which would include glycerol.&rdquo; The plant will employ a batch process, maybe two or three reactions, followed by water wash and two-column distillation to purify the fuel. &ldquo;The batch process takes more time but the economics change when you have a negative-cost feedstock,&rdquo; Olson says. &ldquo;There isn&rsquo;t a shortcut to this. If you&rsquo;re willing to go through the steps that are needed to convert it, it can be done&mdash;it&rsquo;s just a question of time and money. We&rsquo;re willing to take the time in a batch process, and we&rsquo;re willing to spend the money, and everyone else is trying to cold-fusion, black-box this thing and short change the process.&rdquo; While much of the focus of this effort is restoring the health of the city&rsquo;s sewer system and protecting the health of Atlanta residents, let&rsquo;s not forget about the locally produced biodiesel. &ldquo;You also have the benefit of potentially being able to purchase this fuel at a cost below what we&rsquo;re paying currently in terms of market rates for fuel,&rdquo; Willis says, adding, &ldquo;and coupled with the mayor&rsquo;s desire to have a green city that is approaching the challenges of sustainability head-on, you get something that works for the city of Atlanta.&rdquo; Olson also suggests that the facility will generate $15 million in green jobs payroll over 10 years and the creation of 25 to 30 green jobs for the area. In the end if, for whatever reason, FOGFuels&rsquo; FOG2D process does not live up to its expectations, there&rsquo;s a performance bond in play with the city of Atlanta. &ldquo;The way it stands now is they&rsquo;ll be developing a facility on city property, so the only investment we have is the use of our land to build the facility,&rdquo; Willis says. &ldquo;The performance bond will essentially leave the city in the same position it would have been in if FOGFuels had never approached the city to do the deal, so they&rsquo;ll use the performance bond to remove the facility if their process or technology turned out not to work. After all the tens of millions of dollars FOGFuels would have put into the facility and research and everything, if it doesn&rsquo;t work, the performance bond holds us harmless and puts us in a position that we would not be harmed as a city, which makes it a lot easier for us to be in the position to have this conversation.&rdquo;&nbsp; FOGFuels plans to use the future success of the Atlanta facility as a model to replicate in metropolises across the U.S. &ldquo;Many times when looking at biofuels, it is asked, &lsquo;Can we displace 20 to 30 percent of the petroleum we use?&rsquo;&rdquo; says Ragauskas. &ldquo;Certainly FOG is generated on the level to allow you to do that. Remember, biofuels frequently provide a really valuable opportunity to take a waste product that society has a difficult time getting rid of, then doing the chemical conversion to liquid fuel that we value and burn. Instead of landfilling it or, in other parts of world we read reports where it&rsquo;s dumped illegally or, worse yet, reintroduced into the food stream, this will provide a viable commercial market to solve a problem that society has, and how to get rid of it. I think that&rsquo;s equally as important as the big, global energy problem that we face. And on a regional basis, this provides a renewable source of biodiesel that solves regional issues of sustainability.&rdquo; ------------------------------ Author: Ron Kotrba Editor, Biodiesel Magazine 218-745-8347 rkotrba@bbiinternational.com

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A bourgeoning solution to illegal dumping of fats, oils and greases in Atlanta's sewers 

The City of FOG

Ion exchange resin was introduced in the biodiesel industry as a dry-wash media. Now, it is being used for a number of other applications in biodiesel plants, including esterification catalysts, media to improve cold soak filtration test performance and glycerin purification. Ironically, ion exchange resin is increasingly being utilized in water-wash plants to decatonize wash water, and to polish and dry the finished fuel. The term dry wash is an oxymoron; dry wash is a term commonly used to define any biodiesel purification process that does not utilize water, including everything from absorbents to ion exchange resin. More than 90 percent of the biodiesel gallons that are produced with the dry-wash process use ion exchange resin (DW-Resin). Fortunately, in the years since it was introduced, the cost of DW-Resin has come down and resin quality has improved. Use costs for DW-Resin now range from 2 to 4 cents per gallon of biodiesel treated. In comparison, the most commonly utilized absorbent, magnesium silicate, has a use cost of 9 to 14 cents per gallon. The base structure DW-Resin is a copolymer of styrene cross-linked with divinylbenzene. This compound is extremely tough. The next step in the manufacturing process attaches millions of ion exchange sites to the copolymer matrix through a process called sulfonation. These strongly charged sites will exchange a hydrogen ion for other cations (i.e., Na++, K++ and Ca++). Of course, this exchange can result in soap being split by the removal of sodium or potassium from the molecule. It is important to note, however, that this is the least desirable activity the DW-Resin can perform. Of greater importance is the powerful attraction that the resin exhibits for polar compounds, particularly glycerin. This attraction is due to the demand for hydration by the charged sites within the resin bead. The absorption of glycerin, or other polar compounds like water and methanol, does not exhaust the ion exchange capacity of the resin. Glycerin absorption can be reversed by replacing the glycerin with another polar compound like methanol, in the wash process. Theoretically, the resin could go through the glycerin absorption cycle an infinite number of times. In practice, the exchange of cations from soap, or excess catalyst, reduces the absorptive capacity of the resin. Another factor that will reduce resin life is fouling by organics like unsaponifiable matter. As we have discussed, DW-Resin can remove contaminants by ion exchange and by absorption. One of the most common misconceptions is that the resin removes glycerin by holding it on the surface of the beads. Glycerin, water and methanol are actually pulled into the beads, however, causing them to swell to double their original size. The resin bed also removes a significant amount of insoluble soap (micelles), glycerin, and unsaponifiable matter by simple filtration. There are 59 million DW-Resin beads in a gallon, with a total surface area of 1,995 square feet. The surface of the resin becomes coated with soap and unsaponifiable matter. This sticky layer attracts more insoluble matter and promotes the formation of soap micelles. If the column is left in service too long, or if the loading of insoluble matter is high, the column can release a slug of contaminants. The three ways DW-Resin removes contaminants from biodiesel&mdash;ion exchange of catalyst and soap, absorption of glycerin and water, and filtration of insoluble soap and unsaponifiable matter&mdash;are accomplished in a column. Proper design of the column and control of process flow is critical to optimum performance. Operating in a lead/lag configuration at a process flow rate of around three bed volumes per hour is optimum. The flow rate is important because the absorption of glycerin requires time. The amount of time for absorption is related to temperature, methanol concentrations and the percent capacity remaining in the resin. The ideal temperature is 115 degrees Fahrenheit. The acceptable temperature range is 90 to 140 degrees. It is often said that there must be some methanol in the process stream to make DW-Resin work. That is true, but it should be noted that there is always some methanol present in biodiesel, even when the biodiesel is within specifications. The real issue is the ratio of methanol to the level of soap and glycerin in the process stream. Absorption rates will be slow for a stream with high-glycerin/soap and low-methanol content. Most plants operate their dry-wash columns prior to demethylation. This is a good option because it protects the demethylation system from fouling with soap and glycerin. It also allows the resin to be washed with methanol when it becomes loaded with glycerin and soap. It is becoming increasingly common for plants to install dry-wash polishing columns after demethylation. Because soap and glycerin levels are very low at that point, the resin can polish many gallons prior to reaching saturation. Frequently, plants will move the resin to one of their columns prior to demethylation after it reaches its absorption capacity. The resin is then washed with methanol and put into service. Of course, the total cost of the dry-wash process per gallon is a key issue. A survey of the larger producers that utilize the dry-wash process indicates a wide range of gallons treated per pound of resin exhausted. The range is 100 to 220 gallons per pound. The median number is around 170 gallons per pound. The range is wide because of the variability in feedstock, dosing strategy and separation technology prior to the dry-wash columns. Another significant factor determining resin performance and longevity is the methanol washing process. The temperature of the methanol used in washing dry-wash resin is very important. Many plants store methanol outside, and end up washing resin with cold methanol. Heating the methanol will help remove congealed soap, unsaponifiables and glycerol. There are some other common mistakes that are made regarding washing columns with methanol. Recirculating the first methanol rinse through the resin will increase the amount of soap that is split by the resin. That exhausts the exchange capacity of the resin. The first rinse should be a soak-then-drain procedure. Not applying a final rinse will leave glycerin in the resin bed. The glycerin left in the bed will end up getting flushed into the process stream when the column is put back into service. At a time when even bad feedstock is expensive, more plants are running animal fats and yellow grease. More plants are using acid esterification, many without adequate drying prior to transesterification. Soap is up. Consequently, improved separation prior to dry wash is more important than ever. Many plants were built with gravity settlers as their only separation option. This technology was adequate when the plants were running low-FFA vegetable oils. Unfortunately, gravity settlers are limited by the fact that glycerin and soap are emulsified in methyl ester during the transesterification process. Consider homogenized milk. It is simply an emulsion of water, protein and fat. Milk is homogenized by a mechanical process that involves heat and agitation to create an emulsion. Does this sound a little like your transesterification reactor? Coalescers are commonly used to break emulsions. Unfortunately, coalescers have a bad name in the biodiesel industry because they tend to foul with soap. There are some new options out there including inline electrocoalescers. There are also some strategies that will help without adding more equipment. Keeping the biodiesel temperature up in the decanter will speed settling. Ultimately, only one thing matters more than making quality biodiesel at a profit. That, of course, is safety. A dry-wash column that is open at the top could possibly be full of methanol vapor. It is easy to forget that methanol vapor is heavier than air. A worker who is above the column, loading resin, is at risk. It is important to insure that the column is grounded and does not contain concentrated methanol vapors. A spark from any source could spell trouble. --------------------- Author: Rod Yawn President, ALX Enterprises LLC 615-866-0828 rod@alxent.com

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COLUMNIZED: DW-Resin is packed in a series of columns, such as these manufactured by AP Innovations, to purify the biodiesel fuel. 

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Helpful tips and procedures to get the most out of your ion exchange resin beads

March-April 2013

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March-April 2013.css-7jxktu{position:absolute;bottom:0px;left:0px;right:0px;height:3px;border-radius:3px;background-color:var(--chakra-colors-brandBlack);}

Business Briefs

Business Briefs - Companies, Organizations & People in the News

Columns

Adsorptive Purification: A Flexible Safety Net for a Demanding Market

PROPOSED QAP RULE

Overview of Wastewater Regulation for Biodiesel Processing

Featured

The Many Faces of Distillation

The City of FOG

Contributions

Ion Exchange Resin as Dry Wash Media

March-April 2013