Low-cost Biodiesel Production Process Using Meat Rendering Wastes, Recycled Greases and Unrefined Vegetable Oil Feedstocks

Biodiesel is a fuel that is made from processing vegetable oil or animal fats into a liquid fuel that can be combusted in a standard diesel engine with no modifications. Boidiesel is made from renewable feedstocks, does not contribute to global warming and can be made from domestically agricultural products. However, the growth of the biodiesel industry has been slowed because the current process requires a highly refined (expensive) low free fatty acid vegetable oil.
This proposed SBIR project will develop, test and evaluate a new process for producing biodiesel from much less expensive high free fatty acid (FFA) vegetable oil and animal fat feedstocks. The new process will promote increased us of biodiesel by reducing the cost of the fuel. Additionally the new process will be more energy efficient and will not produce aqueous waste like the current process. The Life Cycle Analysis indicates that in addition to the environmental benefits of using the biodiesel fuel, the new production process has less impact on the environment than the existing biodiesel production process.
The anticipated results of the Phase I project include the performance data (reaction kinetics and yields) for the new biodiesel process and an engineering and economic feasibility study. The profitability of the overall process will be determined based on the feedstock costs, process yields, equipment costs, operating costs and biodiesel price. Phase I will culminate with a detailed analysis which will be used to justify a Phase II effort.
The commercial application is a new chemical production process for producing low-cost biodiesel. The main innovation of the product is the ability to use a much less expensive feedstock. The United States product 75 million gallons of biodiesel in 2005, and the USDA estimates the market in 2010 will be at least 400 million gallons. However, this market will be even larger if the price of biodiesel is reduced, and there are enough oil seed corps, animal fats and waste greases to support a domestic biodiesel industry of over 1 billion gallons per year.