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Preem, Södra and Sveaskog to Partner to Produce Tall Oil Renewable Diesel
7 July 2008
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| SunPine’s tall oil process produces either crude tall diesel for hydroprocessing at a refinery or standard biodiesel. Click to enlarge. |
Preem, Södra and Sveaskog have signed an agreement to acquire approximately 60% of the shares of SunPine AB, a company building a production plant in Piteå, Sweden to convert crude tall oil (CTO) either to “crude tall diesel” for subsequent hydroprocessing at a refinery into a renewable diesel component or, via purification, into standard EN14214 biodiesel. (Earlier post.)
SunPine is investing SEK 250 million (US$41.8 million) in the plant in Piteå, which is due to start production during the last quarter of 2009.
Preem announced that it will upgrade its oil refinery in Gothenburg to be able to process the tall oil, as well as vegetable oils and animal fats, into renewable diesel. Preem will itself invest SEK 250 million between the SunPine investment and the refinery upgrade, with SEK50 million going to the SunPine plant and SEK 200 million toward the Gothenburg refinery.
Crude tall oil is a byproduct of the kraft (sulfate) processing of pinewood for pulp and paper. Crude tall oil starts as tall oil soap separated from recovered black liquor in the kraft pulping process. The tall oil soap is acidified to yield crude tall oil. Crude tall oil contains 40-50% fatty acids such as oleic and linoleic acids; 5-10% sterols, alcohols, and other neutral components. Conventionally, CTO is first depitched and then upgraded by distillation to produce more valuable products such as tall oil fatty acids (TOFA) and tall oil rosin (TOR).
The SunPine plant in Piteå will produce up to 100,000 m3 (26.4 million gallons US) of crude tall diesel per year. Targeted renewable diesel capacity for the Preem refinery in Gothenburg is 140,000 tonnes (about 44 million gallons US).
Approximately 40% of the shares in SunPine will be held by Kiram AB, which in turn will be owned by the contractor, Lars Stigsson, who founded the business. SunPine has signed an agreement with Södra and a number of other timber industry companies to purchase tall oil for production in Piteå.
A by-product during the production of pine diesel in Piteå will be oil from tall oil pitch, which can be refined to chemicals within the food and pharmaceutical industry. Among other things, Beta-Sitosterol can be produced, which is used in cholesterol-reducing foodstuff and for manufacturing hormone-based medicines.
Preem is Sweden’s largest producer and supplier of fuel; Södra is an association of timber and products companies; and state-owned Sveaskog is Sweden’s leading timber supplier.
July 7, 2008 in Biomass, Diesel | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (1)
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Posted by: Henry Gibson | July 11, 2008 at 10:22 PM
The Amazon Rainforest used to be good at taking in CO2...look at Rondonia and Mato Grosso provinces in Brazil...the conversion to agriculture is HORRIFYING! Those white areas are mostly ag areas!
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=-11.156845,-59.348145&spn=5.107477,11.546631&t=h&z=7
Posted by: ejj | July 13, 2008 at 10:56 AM
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Tracked on May 5, 2009 7:16:16 PM
Its been a long time since Swedish pitch was very important to the British navy and others; It was the best. I hope the forests of the world are not further depleted because of biofuels. The fatty acids may be able to be burnt directly in some diesel engines if purefied. Englands forests were nearly destroyed by the beginning of the industrial revolution.
What is now needed is not a fuel cell but a reverse fuel cell that takes in CO2 and puts out combustible liquids. At least it should produce CO and O to make into synthesis gas.
EFFPOWER is making high power lead acid batteries. AC propulsion showed that lead acid batteries were economical for operating electric cars ten years ago. Calcars demonstrated sucessful use of non optimized lead acid batteries in a Prius. If newer known and tested techniques are used that keep the Prius battery operating along with the lead battery, it would give useful plug in hybrids at much lower cost. EFFPOWER has techniques to make even lighter weight high performance lead batteries. EFFPOWER's present prototypes will run a modified Prius for 30 miles on electricity. ..HG..