Screw Pressing process

The screw pressing process covers both high pressure single pressing and low pressure pre-pressing prior to a solvent extraction process. Pre-pressing generally produces a cake containing 15-18% residual oil before it is fed to the solvent extractor which produces a residual of less than 1%.

Refining process

The refining process covers both neutralizing and bleaching:

Neutralizing: The oil would first be heated then mixed with phosphoric acid to optimize precipitation of gums and trace metals. Caustic soda solution (lye) would then be mixed with the conditioned oil, which neutralizes the acid as well as the free fatty acids in the oil. As the reaction of treated oil continues, soap and precipitated materials agglomerate. The heavy phase soap with entrained impurities would be removed and sent to intermediate storage. The neutralized oil would then be sent directly for bleaching.

Bleaching: The neutralized oil is heated before it is mixed with a special soap and gum attracting adsorbent (silica). The adsorbent is used to evaporate the moisture. The dry oil and adsorbent mixture is filtered, removing the spent adsorbent. The filtered oil is further heated before it is mixed with bleaching earth. The earth adsorbs pro-oxidants, color bodies and other residual impurities. The oil and earth mixture is filtered and the bleached filtered oil is sent to storage awaiting distribution to customers.

Biodiesel Technology

The process of converting plant-based oil into Biodiesel (BDF), or transesterification is done by neutralizing the free fatty acids in oil and removing the glycerin, thereby creating alcohol esters.

The process is accomplished by mixing Methanol (wood alcohol) with lye (sodium hydroxide) to make sodium methoxide. This liquid is then mixed into plant-based oil.

After a chemical reaction, the entire mixture settles and separates. Glycerin settles to the bottom: and Methyl Esters or BDF floats to the top. Finally, the Methyl Esters are washed, filtered and distilled.

Glycerin is purified and Methanol is partially recovered to save production material cost and create purified marketable glycerin.

Schematically, transesterification can be described as follows:

100 kg of oil + 15 kg Methanol + 1 kg sodium hydroxide (KOH or NaOH) = 100 kg BDF (Methyl Esters) + 10 kg (impure) glycerin

Biomass co-generation

Ecolite Technologies proposes initially to install 2 MW Co-Generation power plant to be used for facility operation. In the second year of operation a 10 MW unit would be installed.

The 10 MW Co-Generation power plant, (also called Combined Heat and Power (CHP) systems) would produce renewable power for the plant and grid; generate steam which would be used for both the crushing and Biodiesel plant and other heating processes.

The CHP plant would consists of a Bio-Power 5 CEX unit with a Bio Grate™ biofuel combustion chamber, steam boiler and steam turbine, connections to the on site facility processes and a biomass fuel conveyance system.

The BioGrate would be designed for efficient combustion of moist wood fuels, such as forest residues. The moisture content of the fuel could be as high as 65%. The boiler would be a natural circulation water tube boiler that produces superheated steam for a highly efficient reaction-type condensing turbine with controlled extraction for process heat.

The CHP plant would have an electrical power output of up to 6.3 MWe, and a thermal output of up to 3.5 MWth for process heating. The plant would be delivered on a turnkey basis (excluding civil works). The fuel for such a unit would be wood residues generated during the clearing process and from seedcake residue created after the crushing of the oil seeds. Thinning and pruning residue would also be used.

Our analysis indicated that we would require roughly 84,000 BDT per year of biomass feedstock for our 10 MW facility which is very much below the range of biomass generated.

A very high level of automation would be included and the plant will be run unmanned with periodical supervision to the plant.