Title:
OVEST Project: Use of Vegetable Oils from Waste for Energy Production
Author(s):
Prussi, M., Chiaramonti, D., Recchia, L., Martelli, F., Guidotti, F.
Document(s):
Paper
Abstract:
The use of vegetable oil for power production is a viable route that allows for environmental, social and economic benefits. Nevertheless the increasing interest in pure vegetable oils for energy and biodiesel production promotes market volatilities and, in recent years, high and peak prices. In this framework the OVEST project, supported by the Tuscany region, aims at investigating the possibility to use waste oil streams of the food industry to obtain an alternative feedstock for bioliquids and biofuels production. Most of these waste oil streams are composed by distilled fractions obtained during vegetable oil refining, i.e. free fatty acids, di and monoglyceride, etc. In the current market, a number of waste streams are available from the food industry: oleins and fatty acids, sludge oils and WCO (Waste Cooking Oils) represent several examples of these waste streams from edible oil production. In the OVEST project, vegetable oil is obtained from waste materials by the reesterification process, in order to obtain a new feedstock for biodiesel production and for power generation. A market analysis is carried out in OVEST, to estimate the economic viability and the potential of each waste streams. PFAD (Palm Fatty Acid Distillate), fatty acids from vegetable oils and WCO are very interesting feedstock to obtain ”reesterified” oils. The new vegetable oils obtained in OVEST show promising chemicalphysical characteristics for power generation, such as contamination from solids and inorganics: for this reason these vegetable oils are under test on reciprocating engines and micro gas turbine for power production. From the environmental point of view, the use of these feedstock allows to meet the requirements of the recently issued European Directive, that introduces minimum targets in terms of GHGs saving for bioliquids and biofuels. According to the EC Directive, LCA must be carried out considering equal to zero the wastes and residual products GHG emissions before processing. Nevertheless, in order to apply this approach to LCA, as proposed in the RED, some preliminary work has to be done in order to ensure the classification of the specific raw materials as waste/residue or byproducts on both the technical as well as legal base. In fact, GHG emissions strictly depends on the nature of the raw materials (e.g. in case of residual material no impacts are associated to it, whilst for the byproduct the emissions allocated during its production chain must be considered). Moreover, the geographical area of raw materials production as well as the transportation means must be identified in order to correctly quantify the impacts associated to the transport phase, therefore an adequate traceability must be assured. The present work showed that most of the input materials to the esterification plant may be classified as wastes or residues, and that assuring an accurate traceability for each treatment and transport phase is a really complex issue. However the GHG savings of 83.5%, indicated in the RED for bioliquids from wastes, was confirmed by the work here carried out. The OVEST project therefore demonstrates the viability of the use of reesterified oils (reconstructed oils) for power production and transport.
Keywords:
conversion technology, organic waste, vegetable oil
Topic:
Biomass Resources
Subtopic:
Biomass residues to special product
Event:
19th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition
Session:
OE1.2
Pages:
294 - 298
ISBN-13:
978-88-89407-55-4
ISBN-10:
88-89407-55-7
Paper DOI:
10.5071/19thEUBCE2011-OE1.2
Price:
FREE
