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18 (4)
beyond
biodiesel
Salmiah Ahmad, Parthiban Siwayanan,
Zulina Abd Murad, Haliza Abd Aziz,
and Hoong Seng Soi
to develop appropriate plants. In 2000, the Malaysian Palm Oil are either better than or comparable with the best product
Board (MPOB) purchased a 20 kg/h sulfonation pilot plant available in the Malaysian market.
from Chemithon (Seattle,Washington, USA), a MES technolo- Palm oil contains about 50:50 saturated and unsaturated
gy supplier, to produce palm oil-based MES. The pilot plant fatty acids. Fatty acid composition reveals that the saturated
was commissioned in late 2001, several metric tons (MT) of fraction comprises mainly C16 and C18, and to a much lesser
MES were produced, and the quality was evaluated. The pro- extent C12 and C14. During the production of winter biofuel,
cess to produce palm oil-based MES investigated by MPOB the greater the removal of the unsaturated fraction from the
includes conversion of SO2 to SO3, which is then used to sul- C16 mixture, the better the feedstock will be for the produc-
fonate saturated palm oil-based methyl ester. This is then fol- tion of MES. Besides, many studies have shown that C16 MES
lowed with digestion, bleaching, neutralizing, and drying to pro- has the best detergency. The solid fraction obtained as co-
duce high-active dried MES. product from the palm oil winter biofuel process will there-
fore make an ideal feedstock for the production of MES.
Demand for LAS feedstock has been estimated to be 3.4
million MT (MMT) by 2010. An assumption of 30% substitu-
tion implies demand for 1 MMT of ME for MES production.
With the anticipated development of biodiesel in Malaysia and
Indonesia there will be enough feedstock for the production
of this surfactant.
The major potential market for esterquats is, as men- Palm oil biodiesel producers have
tioned previously, in the textile industry, as it has become the
worldwide leading ingredient for fabric softener. Apart from the option to produce not only
fabric care, other applications of esterquats include uses as summer biodiesel, winter biodiesel, and
hair conditioner, as an antistatic agent in polymers, and as an
ingredient in bacterial and sanitizer products. crude glycerine but also vitamins
and saturated methyl esters.
GLYCERINE AS FEEDSTOCK FOR
THE PRODUCTION OF SURFACTANTS The increased production of glycerine as a co-product of
In the oleochemicals industry, the production of soap, fatty biodiesel plants has led the EU to finance programs dedicated
acids, and ME for fatty alcohol manufacture is accompanied by to the research and development of new uses for glycerol.
the production of glycerine as a by-product. In 1999 the sup- One of the promising projects is the production of 1,2- or 1,3-
ply of glycerine due to the manufacture of these products was propanediol through fermentation of glycerol. These com-
approximately 41, 13, and 25% respectively, with biodiesel ac- pounds are becoming important raw materials for the manu-
counting for only 7%. However, in 2004, the supply of glycer- facture of polymers. Polyglycerol was derived previously from
ine from biodiesel production increased to 18%. epichlorohydrin or from dehydration of glycerol. Now glyc-
In 2004, the capacity for the production of glycerine was erol is used to produce epichlorohydrin.
about 1.3 MMT while the world consumption was about 0.97 Polyglycerol is used to produce polyesters, and these are
MMT. By 2008, consumption is expected to increase to only used as emulsifiers in cosmetics and pharmaceutical products
1.1 MMT while the production capacity will increase to 1.6 as well as in textiles and lubricants. About five years ago there
MMT. Increased supply without a parallel increase in the con- was only one producer in the world for this material, but
sumption/demand has led to price decreases. Average glycer- today there are three. Due to limited supply the current de-
ine prices have declined from $1003 to $840 per MT during mand is approximately 20,000 MT a year. However, the de-
the 20012004 period. mand will increase when there is further supply.
220 April 2007, Vol. 18 (4)
As mentioned, the commercial production of polyglycerol amount of lycopene. Research has shown that these natural
involves the use of epichlorohydrin or dehydration of glycerol. carotenoids possess antioxidant and anticancer properties
MPOB decided to use dehydration of glycerol to produce and serve as precursors of vitamin A.
polyglycerol; however, instead of conventional heating, mi- These vitamins can be recovered from CPO during the
crowave heating is used. The use of microwave heating helps production of biodiesel. The recovery of these valuable vita-
to increase the reaction rate, with the advantage of no possi- mins offers new opportunities to enhance profitability of the
ble contamination with chlorine. palm oil-based biodiesel investments.