AGT System Turns Low-Cost Byproducts Into High-Quality Biodiesel

Alfa Laval introduces its Advanced Glycerol Treatment system, a prefabricated, turn-key biodiesel pretreatment solution for virtually any existing transesterification plant—scalable for a capacity of 400 to 40,000 gallons per day. The AGT system allows for source material flexibility as it increases vegetable and animal byproduct value by reducing the free fatty acids (FFA) content down to 0.8 percent, resulting in 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 AGT 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 Alfa Laval AGT system also provides flexibility on the plant output side. Processors can tap off the biorefined oil at different stages of production and upgrading—i.e., when biodiesel is traded as an oleochemical (pharmaceuticals and cosmetics), forwarded to off-site biodiesel producers, or processed as monoglycerides and diglycerides treated oil, which is then ready for mixing as heavy fuel oil.

The modular, prefabricated AGT 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.