Phoenix Fuels - Biodiesel

The high quality PPO produced by Phoenix Fuels undergoes a complex transterification process to produce a high-grade biodiesel suitable for both trade and everyday vehicles which have been converted for biodiesel use.

Biodiesel Production Process

Biodiesel is made from...

• Vegetable Oil. Many different vegetable oils are suitable to make biodiesel from; the one thing they have in common is that they are all triglycerides.
• Methanol. Methanol is a readily available commodity chemical. It is added at about 12% by weight to the vegetable oil fed.
• Catalyst. Sodium Hydroxide is used to speed up the reaction. When mixed together, vegetable oil and methanol will react to produce biodiesel without a catalyst eventually, but it would take weeks instead of hours.

The reaction that produces biodiesel is known as transesterification. This splits the three fatty acids that make up the vegetable oil from the glycerol molecule that binds them together. The methanol molecules replace the bonds that joined the fatty acid chains and glycerol together.

Following the reaction, the glycerol that is freed from the original oil molecules settles to the bottom. We can then decant this off for further processing.

This leaves us with biodiesel, but at this point it still contains leftover methanol and a proportion of the catalyst.

Please contact us for further information and sales.

Elsbett

The Phoenix Group have partnered with the world’s leading supplier of German conversion technology Elsbett.

Please visit their web site for further details of conversions and retro-conversions www.elsbett.com