INFORM April 2025

Partially- or fully neutralized Crude glycerol + soap + methanol

inform April 2025, Vol. 36 (4) • 27

Crude glycerin to post treatment

12.00

10.00

0.00

8.00

2.50

5.10

8.20

11.71

6.00

10.90

10.00

10.20

10.60

6.80 7.60 9.30

10.20

wt %

8.56

4.00

5.61

2.00

3.90

1.92

2.09 1.76

0.27 0.21 0.22

0.19

0.84

0.52

0.54

0

0h Feed

1h

2h

3h

4h

5h

6h

1h

2h

3h

4h

5h

6h

2% Methanol 0.05% Eversa® Advance

4% Methanol 0.2% Eversa® Advance

Fame [%]

FFA [%]

Bench scale enzymatic batch reaction. FAME formation exceeding initial FFA concentrations stem from MAG and DAG conversion in parallel. Source:Novonesis

in the feedstock without rectification. All these factors result in a cost efficient, robust, safe operation. The enzymatic reaction is scalable and can be tailored to the desired reaction time and throughput for the individual biodiesel plant. The image above shows the reaction progres sion during a laboratory batch reaction on a model oil contain ing 8.5 weight percent FFA. The process quickly reduces FFA to under 0.3 weight percent at a high enzyme dosage. Or, as primarily intended, it can reduce FFA to less than 1.5 weight percent at a generally acceptable reaction time of around six hours, with low enzyme and methanol dosages. In such cases, an AN step will remove the residual FFA prior to the alkaline transesterification reaction. Similarly, if the feedstock FFA con centration changes, the enzyme and methanol dosage can be varied accordingly to achieve constant productivity. At FFA concentrations exceeding 20 weight percent, the enzymatic reaction has not yet been sufficiently tested. AT SCALE OPERATIONS The first industrial plant to test and implement the enzymatic solution was Olfar’s Erechim plant in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The implementation was done using existing acid esterifica tion reactors, requiring minimal retrofitting costs, and solving the challenges the plant experienced related to the existing acid esterification process. This has resulted in an optimized

and easy-to-operate biodiesel process with less maintenance and downtime, no color formation or yield losses from side reactions, and lower energy consumption and environmental footprint. The successful implementation at Olfar Erechim means that Novonesis and BR Process are now able to offer this simple, effi cient and low-cost pretreatment solution to any existing or new chemical biodiesel plants. Since the official launch in November 2024, the solution has been fully implemented at three addi tional biodiesel plants in Brazil, with multiple industrial trials ongoing and planned in Brazil and the rest of the world. For those interested in hearing more about the solution and the technology behind it, Novonesis and BR Process will present the details of this pretreatment solution at the AOCS Annual Meeting in Portland, Oregon the last week of April. Rasmus Bøg Alstrup, a research scientist, and Mads Agerskov Pedersen, a business developer, both work at Novonesis in Denmark. For questions, please contact Mads at MDAP@novonesis.com. Lucas Klettenhofer works in process innovation, design and engineering for oil refining and modification at BR Process, Brazil. For questions, please contact Lucas at lk@brprocess.com. The authors further wish to acknowledge Fernanda Faria, Danilo Lima, and Florivaldo Galina from BR Process for their collaboration.