Glycerol treatment system transforms low-grade fats into biodiesel

The Alfa Laval Adavanced Glycerol Treatment plant

Alfa Laval, an engineering solutions provider, announces the Advanced Glycerol Treatment systems. The treatment systems turn low-grade fats, oils or grease byproducts into high-quality biodiesel - allowing processors to pick and choose the lowest byproduct or feedstock market price to increase overall profitability.
Alfa Laval's Advanced Glycerol Treatment system is a prefabricated, turn-key biodiesel pretreatment solution for virtually any existing transesterification plant - scalable for a capacity of 15 to 1,500 hectoliters per day. The systems 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 a higher quality oil which is then easily processed into biodiesel fuel.
Knowing that byproduct or feedstock prices represent the bulk of biodiesel production costs, the Alfa Laval Advanced Glycerol Treatment system provides feedstock flexibility to the price-volatile edible oil spot market - where processors now have flexibility to shop the fat and oil market for the lowest possible raw material cost - increasing overall plant profitability.
The Advanced Glycerol Treatment system also provides flexibility on the plant output side. Processors can tap off the bio-refined oil at different stages of production and upgrading - when biodiesel is traded as an oleochemical for pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, forwarded to off-site biodiesel producers, or processed as mono-glycerides and diglycerides treated oil which is then ready for mixing as heavy fuel oil.
The modular, prefabricated Advanced Glycerol Treatment 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.