Abstract

Biodiesel is a promising alternative to petroleum diesel and its production from various generations of feedstocks by using different technologies has been constantly growing globally. However, in spite of such large scale of production, serious considerations should be taken into account to ensure the long-term sustainability of biodiesel production. This issue becomes more of concern given the fact that some generations of feedstocks used for biodiesel production are in clear conflict with food security. The concept of biorefinery has been at the center of attention with an aim to address these challenges by promoting an integral use of biomass to allow the production of multiple products along with biodiesel. Such implementation has been extensively studied over the last years and is expected to lead to economic, environmental, and social advantages over individual processes. The current review first presented an overview on biodiesel, its different feedstocks, and production technologies. Subsequently, the biorefinery concept and its correct implementation was technically discussed. Biodiesel production under the biorefinery scheme was also presented. Finally, techno-economic analysis of biodiesel production under the biorefinery concept by considering palm oil-based biorefinery as case study was investigated.

Highlights

  • Integral use of biomass under biorefinery concept in general leads to economic, environmental, and social advantages over individual processes

  • The concept of biorefinery has been at the center of attention with an aim to address these challenges by promoting an integral use of biomass to allow the production of multiple products along with biodiesel

  • In order to analyze the production of biodiesel under the biorefinery concept, the design of a biorefinery using fresh fruit bunches (FFB) of palm oil as raw material was investigated as a case study

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Summary

Biodiesel production technologies

Biodiesel is produced through different technologies which differ from one another in terms of the type of catalyst employed and the conditions under which the transesterification process is carried out. These differences lead to the formation of different by-products which necessitate different separation/purification stages. Some of the existing production technologies are briefly described as examples: Fig.. Distribution of energy supply in the transportion sector in Colombia (UPME, 2016)

Alkaline-catalyzed transesterification process
Acid-catalyzed transesterification process
Enzyme-catalyzed transesterification process
Ultrasonic irradiation
Supercritical transesterification process
Biodiesel feedstock
Biorefinery concept
Hierarchy
Sequencing
Integration
Types of biorefineries
Feedstocks
Biodiesel production under a biorefinery scheme
Process design
Environmental analysis
Economic analysis
Findings
Conclusions

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