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Research Article 1

Tim J. Hilbers*
Lisette M. J. Sprakel*
Leon B. J. van den Enk
Bart Zaalberg
Henk van den Berg
Louis G. J. van der Ham
University of Twente, Faculty
of Science and Technology,
Enschede, The Netherlands.
Green Diesel from Hydrotreated Vegetable
Oil Process Design Study
A systematic approach was applied to study the process of hydrotreating vegetable
oils. During the three phases of conceptual, detailed, and final design, unit opera-
tions were designed and sized. Modeling of the process was performed with Uni-
Sim Design. Producing green diesel and jet fuel from vegetable oils was found to
be technically possible via a flexible process of hydrotreatment. The resulting mass
and energy balances indicated high carbon atom and energy yield. An economic
evaluation proved that the operational expenses mainly depend on the cost of raw
materials. Currently, the margin between crude palm oil and the retail diesel price
is too low to operate an economically viable process. However, production and
utilization of biofuels is required by international regulations.

Keywords: Green diesel, Hydrotreating, Process design, Process flexibility

Received: October 31, 2014; revised: January 15, 2015; accepted: January 20, 2015
DOI: 10.1002/ceat.201400648

1 Introduction
Environmental impact of fossil fuel consumption and govern-
mental measures to protect the environment increase interest
in ‘green’ fuels and minimizing the emission of CO2 and other
greenhouse gases. One of the main issues associated with pro-
duction of biofuels is the energy input in comparison to the
energy content of the product, expressed by the energy return
on energy invested (EROI). The ratio should be at least 3:1 to
cover for infrastructure and transportation, while the ratio is
approximately 1.3:1 for common biofuels [1].
Biofuels can be produced from biomass, particularly second-
generation biomass, as it does not compete with food produc-
tion. High raw material costs are an issue in making biofuel
processes economically attractive. However, proof of technolo-
gy is an increased subject in literature, because international
regulations require utilization of biofuels in the near future. In
the European Union, for example, the 2009/28/EC Renewable
Energy Directive (RED) enforces a 20 % target for the energy
share from renewable sources, of which at least 10 % renew-
ables in the transportation sector.
In the transportation sector, the most relevant biofuels are
bioethanol and renewable diesel. Bioethanol can be blended
with gasoline and renewable diesel with petroleum diesel.
Renewable diesel has become industrially more interesting,
because the diesel market has been growing since 2000, while
the gasoline market is in decline [2]. In 2011, the biofuel supply
was 1.9 million barrels per day, which is expected to increase to
6.6 million barrels per day in 2035 [3].
Potential processes for diesel from biomass are reviewed by
Perego et al. [4]. Biological sources with an appropriate hydro-
carbon chain length are, e.g., fatty acids in vegetable oils and
animal fats. Vegetable oils consist of a mixture of lipids, mainly
triglycerides, i.e., esters of glycerol and un(saturated) fatty
acids. Microalgae also consist of lipids, but the growth of algae
and recovery of lipids is energy-intensive. Transesterification of
triglycerides with methanol gives a mixture of fatty acid methyl
esters (FAME) and glycerol. FAME is usually referred to as
conventional biodiesel. A promising alternative is hydrotreat-
ment of vegetable oils (HVO). The product is a synthetic,
mostly paraffinic fuel with chemical-physical properties analo-
gous to petroleum diesel. Both process and products can be
integrated in the existing refinery infrastructure.
This article focuses on the design of a plant for HVO to pro-
duce green diesel. The base case is the conversion of palm oil
into 800 000 tons of fuel per year (8000 production hours),
mainly diesel (C16–C19 alkanes and isomers). Ethical and eco-
logical matters as well as availability of the raw materials were
not within the scope of this study. Hydrogen is available
(1.5 $ kg–1) on site, as this process will be integrated in an exist-
ing refinery. The expanding aviation market also calls for green
jet fuel, which can be produced by cracking and isomerization
of the longer hydrocarbons to enhance the cold flow properties
[5]. The objective is to give an unbiased view on the HVO pro-
cess, flexible in both feedstock and final fuel mix.

–
Correspondence: Tim J. Hilbers (t.j.hilbers@alumnus.utwente.nl),
Lisette M. J. Sprakel (l.m.j.sprakel@alumnus.utwente.nl), University of
Twente, Faculty of Science and Technology, Drienerlolaan 5, 7522 ND
Enschede, The Netherlands.
*These authors contributed equally to this paper.
2 HVO versus FAME
Biodiesel (FAME) and green diesel (HVO) are not only differ-
ent products, the production also differs. Transesterification
into FAME requires methanol and yields the low-value

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2 Research Article
by-product glycerol. The HVO process, illustrated in Fig. 1,
consumes hydrogen and yields the valuable by-product pro-
pane, which can easily be separated, burned, sold or reformed
into hydrogen again. The required methanol and hydrogen are
commonly produced from approximately the same amount of
natural gas. However, HVO can handle free fatty acids (FFA)
in the feed, while FAME is limited to 0.5 % FFAs due to un-
wanted saponification reactions and catalyst deactivation [4].
Furthermore, the HVO process is more flexible owing to addi-
tional hydrocracking and isomerization. Hydrocracking con-
trols the chain length of the fuel mixture, whereas isomeriza-
tion enhances cold flow properties being important steps for
proper green jet fuel and high-quality diesel.
In Tab. 1, critical properties of summer diesel and Fisher-
Tropsch products (XTL, also synthetic fuel) are compared with
typical HVO and FAME diesel [6]. A high cetane number, low
cloud point, and high heating value of HVO are favorable for
HVO. Green diesel also contains hardly any aromatics and
minor to no sulfur, depending on the type of catalyst used [4].
FAME can be blended with regular diesel up to 30 wt % without
significant engine modifications, though the EN 590 standard
limits blending up to 7 vol %, mainly in light of the cold flow
properties and stability [7].
Currently, three major vendors operate similar processes of
hydrotreating vegetable oils: Neste Oil (NExBTL) [6], UOP/
Eni-Ecofining [8], and Axens/IFP (Vegan) [4, 9]. The con-
ceptual design of each process is similar: pretreatment of (non-
edible) vegetable oils, a deoxygenation reactor, a selective
hydrocracking/isomerization reactor, and product separation
by distillation. Hydrogen is fed to both reactors, producing a
fuel mix, water, CO, and CO2.
3 Methods
Process synthesis is a procedure of defining alternatives and
studying the feasibility of each alternative. A structured
approach consisting of three phases, namely, conceptual, de-
tailed, and final, was adopted. In each phase alternatives will
arise, which are recorded in a hierarchical diagram. If at a cer-
tain point an alternative is considered not feasible, another
option can be selected. After every decision, it is necessary to
check if the proposed process is still in line with the goal and
scope [10].
Table 1. Critical properties of diesel, XTL, HVO, and FAME.
Diesel (summer) XTL HVO (NExBTL) FAME (rape seed)
CEN Standard EN 590 TS 15940 n/a
Density (15 °C) [kg m–3] 820–845 765–800 770–790
Cetane number > 51 > 70 75–99
Higher heating value [MJ kg–1] 43.1 44.1 44.1
Blending biofuel [vol %] < 7 allowed < 7 allowed < 30 possible
Flash point [°C] > 55 > 55 > 61
Cloud point [°C] > –34 > –34 > –40
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In the first phase of conceptual design, the scope was defined
in terms of raw materials and product specifications. Deliver-
ables for this phase are a list of chemicals, black box calcula-
tions, and a functional flow diagram. In this design phase only
functions, e.g., separation or reaction, are mentioned. Although
an initial literature study was conducted in this phase, addi-
tional data was required in the next phases.
The output of the conceptual phase was used to design all
steps in detail. Alternatives for each function are considered
and functions are translated to unit operations. The final stage
of detailed design is process optimization by, e.g., heat integra-
tion. The process simulator UniSim Design was used to
obtain the deliverables of the detailed design phase: a process
flow diagram, a mass and energy balance. The property pack-
age NRTL with the Redlich-Kwong equation of state was
employed.
The last phase of final design consists of equipment sizing,
evaluation of process economics, an evaluation of the flexibility
of the process, a safety study, and a simple piping & instrumen-
tation diagram to illustrate process control. Highlights of every
phase are discussed in the next sections.
3.1 Phase 1 – Conceptual Design
The chemistry of hydroprocessing vegetable oils is relatively
simple as illustrated in Fig. 1. Triglycerides are saturated under
hydrogen pressure and converted into free fatty acids and pro-
pane. Long-chain hydrocarbons, water, carbon monoxide, and
carbon dioxide are formed by three simultaneous reactions:
decarboxylation, decarbonylation, and hydrodeoxygenation
[11, 12]. An advantage of decarboxylation is that no hydrogen
is required, but at the cost of carbon loss in the product.
Hydrodeoxygenation is preferred regarding the carbon yield,
but consumes more hydrogen and yields water.
Two vegetable oils, i.e., palm and Jatropha, and two animal
fats, i.e., lard and tallow, are potential feedstocks. Each raw
material has a different composition of (un)saturated trigly-
cerides that will determine the length of hydrocarbons in the
products [13]. Simultaneous to the hydrocarbon formation,
hydrocracking will yield smaller hydrocarbons and a small
amount of isomers.
A preliminary black box calculation was carried out to find
the most promising feedstock. The main driver for the profit-
ability is the narrow margin be-
tween feedstock (0.75–1.15 $ kg–1)
and retail diesel price (1.10 $ kg–1).
This margin was calculated based
on the costs of raw materials (feed-
EN-14214
stock, hydrogen) and revenues
860–900 from the products (diesel, pro-
pane). Palm oil is most profitable
> 51
due to the lower feedstock price.
37.2
< 7 possible
3.1.1 Functional Scheme
> 101
n/a
Hydrotreatment of vegetable oil is a
straightforward process (see Fig. 2)
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Research Article
Figure 1. Reaction scheme for hydroprocessing a triglyceride, e.g. triolein, by saturation,
fatty acid formation, and three routes to hydrocarbon formation. Image adopted from
[30].
Figure 2. Functional block diagram of hydrotreatment process consisting of pretreat-
ment (P1), two reaction (R1-2) and three separation sections (S1-3).
that typically consists of pretreatment, reaction, and separation
[14]. Pretreatment (P1) is necessary to remove contaminants
and other harmful impurities from the feedstock, in particular
metals that deactivate the catalyst. In the reaction section,
alkanes are formed by a catalytic reaction with vegetable oil.
The reaction section can either be a single reactor or two reac-
tors in series (R1-2) with a separation step in between (S1) to
remove water and lights (< C3). The latter case is preferred,
because a large stream of unwanted products is removed, which
reduces the sizing of R2. In the second reactor (R2), the final
product composition and quality can also be controlled better
by adjusting the process conditions. In a second separation step
(S2), a fuel mix is obtained, which is sent to a refining section
(S3), which could also be performed in an existing refinery.
Hydrogen is fed to both reactors and can be recovered by sepa-
ration steps S1 and S2.
3.2 Phase 2 – Detailed Design
Modeling of reactors and reactions with UniSim Design re-
quires equilibrium or preferably kinetic data. The three main
reactions, namely, decarboxylation, decarbonylation, and hydro-
deoxygenation, are taking place in reactor R1. It was assumed
that hydrocracking and isomerization only occur in the second
reactor. Kinetic data of these complex reactions was not avail-
able, so conversion (97 wt %) and selectivity (ratios of reactions
described in Phase 1) from literature were used for simulation
of R1 [11, 12, 15].
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3
3.2.1 Unit Operations
Pretreatment (P1 in Fig. 3) removes impu-
rities to prevent fast degradation in the cat-
alytic reactors. Since the final product is
not food-grade oil, deodorization and de-
colorization, as commonly applied to up-
grade palm oil, are not necessary. However,
some other impurities may even need to be
removed at a level below that required for
food grade. The generally required process-
es are degumming, bleaching, and prefera-
bly neutralization before hydrogenation.
Phosphorous compounds, soaps, trace met-
als, and oxidation products are removed
from the oil because they are unwanted in
the process as well as in the final product.
Metals and impurities can precipitate on
the catalyst and decrease the performance
[16–19].
To determine the dimensions of the first
reactor (R1), it was modeled in MATLAB
using the model compound stearic acid as
raw material with reaction kinetics from
literature [20]. The approach of Krishna
and Sie [21] extended with the approach of
Peschel, Freund, et al. [22–24] was applied.
They included information on mass trans-
fer and heat fluxes in the first part of the method. The proce-
dure of reactor selection consists of three levels: catalyst design
(analyzing mass transfer and flows), injection and dispersion
strategies, and choice of hydrodynamic flow regimes. A multi-
stage reactor is required to cool the products and avoid operat-
ing temperatures above 400 °C which would result in exother-
mic decomposition reactions or even runaway conditions. The
result is a multi-tubular staged trickle-bed reactor (18 ·3.5 m)
with 164 tubes filled with a NiMo/y-Al2O3 catalyst [25].
In the first separation sequence (S1), the reactor outlet is fed
to a three-phase separator (S1.1) to separate a vapor, a liquid
hydrocarbon, and a water phase. A pressure swing adsorption
(PSA) unit (S1.2) was designed to recover hydrogen, but due to
the small amount of hydrogen in the vapor (0.90 wt %), other
options, e.g., acid scrubbing and/or cryogenic distillation, could
be more efficient. The liquid stream of the three-phase separa-
tor is treated in a distillation column (S1.3), based on a butane-
pentane separation. The liquid alkane-rich bottom stream con-
tains unreacted fatty acids (2.4 wt %), which should be removed
by reaction with sodium hydroxide (in S1.4) to protect the cat-
alyst in the second reactor. The fatty acid anion is soluble in a
water-phase, which is separated in a decanter (S1.4) and a cen-
trifuge to minimize product losses. Alternatively, an excess of
hydrogen could be used in R1 to cool the reactor and force
almost complete conversion of fatty acids. Losses of unreacted
FFAs are reduced, but an excess of hydrogen requires signifi-
cant investment in the recovery and recompression of hydro-
gen.
The second reactor (R2) was not modeled, but designed with
basic sizing methods. A trickle-bed reactor was chosen because
of the long lifetime of the bifunctional Ni-Mo catalyst on a
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ZSM-5 zeolite to enhance surface area, the fast mass transfer, Table 2. Process conditions for unit operations of the hydro-
and easier operation compared to the alternative of a slurry treatment plant.
reactor. The reactor dimensions were calculated based on a res-
idence time of 30 min and a catalyst loading of 20 vol %. Temperature [°C] Pressure [bar] Conversion [%]
The outlet stream of reactor 2 is cooled to 30 °C to remove P1 60–100 1 90 %
hydrogen with a higher purity in the subsequent flash tank
(S2). The feed to the third separation sequence (S3) could be R1 300–350 35 97 %
sent off to a refinery or fractionation column. In this project, S1.1 160 35
three separate distillation columns were designed instead of
one fractionation column for the ease of simulation. All prod- S1.2 150 35
uct streams are cooled to 25 °C, while the heat could be used S1.3 80–470 30
for heat integration. The inlet stream of the final distillation
S1.4 380 35
column is compressed to 5 bar to prevent the liquid petroleum
gas (LPG) gas from reaching subzero temperatures. R2 380 35 100 %
All main unit operations are illustrated in a simplified pro-
S2 30 35
cess flow diagram (PFD) in Fig. 3.
The process conditions of each unit are summarized in S3 30–100 1–5
Tab. 2. To achieve high, up-to-ideal conversion of 100 %, the
temperature is moderate and the pressure is high, in general.
for hydrogen. In terms of carbon efficiency, the HVO process is
less attractive because transesterification of the triglyceride of
3.2.2 Mass Balance oleic acid, as a typical component, to methyl oleate gives a car-
bon yield of 95.0 %. In the HVO process, after hydrotreatment
From the feed of 149 t h–1 of palm oil, 134 t h–1 of refined palm to fully saturated stearic acid (94.7 % yield), hydrogenation
oil was produced. In Fig. 4, the carbon balance of the process reactions decrease the carbon yield further by CO/CO2 losses.
excluding pretreatment is illustrated. Based on refined palm The overall mass yield excluding pretreatment equals 46 %
oil, the total carbon recovery in the main products is 81.1 %. A for diesel (62 t h–1), 25 % for kerosene (34 t h–1), and for 1.7 %
substantial amount of carbon (10.3 %) is converted into pro- naphtha (2.3 t h–1). The total yield of the three main products
pane; 3.7 t h–1 of hydrogen is required for hydrogenation. equals 73 % excluding and 66 % including pretreatment. This is
Steam reforming of this effluent gas stream could produce 80–90 % of the maximum possible yield (82 %) based on the
4.6 t h–1 hydrogen, which would make the process self-sufficient black box calculation.

Figure 3. Process flow dia-

gram (PFD) of the HVO pro-
cess. Indicators: C(ooler),
H(eater), R(eactor), S(epara-
tor), and P(retreatment).

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Research Article 5

Figure 4. Carbon balance of vegetable oil to products and side-products.

3.2.3 Energy Balance and Heat Integration 3.3 Phase 3 – Final Design

The energy flows in terms of lower heating values (LHV) are
shown for the process in Fig. 5. The energy yield is 75 % com-
paring the main products to refined palm oil. The heat of com-
bustion of the products is lower than that of the raw materials,
caused by exothermic hydrogenation reactions that produce a
lot of heat resulting in a lower energy yield in the product. The
effluent gas containing propane is responsible for an LHV loss
of 13 %, which is a direct loss of LHV in the final products.
The heat released by the two reactors should be used in the
process to save on utilities; therefore, heat integration was
applied by performing a pinch analysis. All of the 45.5 MW for
heating utilities can theoretically be saved and 40 % of the
required 112.6 MW of cooling utilities. Nevertheless, heating
equipment is required to start up the hydrotreatment process.
Further improvement of heat integration could be achieved by
integration of reboilers and condensers of different distillation
columns, or increasing cold hydrogen feed to several times the
stoichiometric requirement.
3.3.1 Process Flexibility
Changing the type of feedstock to either lard or Jatropha oil leads
to small changes. The largest differences were observed for Jatro-
pha oil. The consumption of hydrogen increased by 12 % (mass-
based) and the production of naphtha by 12 %, whereas the pro-
duction of diesel and kerosene grew less significantly; 37 % more
LPG is produced, the propane-rich effluent gas decreased by
8.2 %, and the water-phase purge increased by 5.0 %. The differ-
ences between palm oil and lard were found to be less extensive:
3.4 % more naphtha, 10 % more LPG, and 3.1 % less effluent gas.
The reaction heat is significantly higher (+21 %) when Jatropha
oil is used because it contains less saturated triglycerides.
Another important aspect of the project was the flexibility of
switching the product mix towards more jet fuel instead of die-
sel. Therefore, cracking was enhanced by increasing the tem-
perature of the second reactor. Calculations were performed
based on the article from Calemma et al. [26] in which hydro-
isomerization and hydrocracking of n-C16 on a Pt/amorphous
SiO2-Al2O3 catalyst was performed. The corresponding annual
revenues are indicated in Fig. 6. The amount of jet fuel can be

Figure 5. Graphical representation of all energy flows in terms of lower heating value (LHV) in megawatts (MW).

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6 Research Article
Figure 6. Total revenues for different product mixes based on cracker temperature.
improved at the cost of diesel production, whereas the produc-
tion of naphtha and LPG increases. The total revenues decrease
significantly above 420 °C due to a lower price for light prod-
ucts.
3.3.2 Economics
The basic dimensioning of the units was established on the meth-
od of Sinnott and Towler [27]. The dimensions of R1 were ob-
tained from the MATLAB model. The costs of utilities were cal-
culated from the amount of cooling water and energy required
[10]. An additional 10 % extra investment was added to take
splitters, buffer vessels, and other small equipment into account.
After completion of the design and sizing of all unit operations,
an economic study was performed [27, 28]. The capital expen-
ditures (CAPEX) of the plant were calculated to be $ 373 mil-
lion, using a Lang factor of 8 [10, 27]. A high Lang factor is
assumed due to experience of underestimation in many studies.
Still, this value is lower than the $ 753 million for a similar
plant built by Neste [29], probably caused by the excess hydro-
gen used (3–5 times more) in the design of that plant.
Contributions to the total CAPEX are indicated in Fig. 7 a.
Sections R1, R2, and S1 are expensive because of costly reac-
tors. Section R1 also includes a multistage hydrogen compres-
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sor and section S1 consists of costly pres-
sure-swing-adsorption columns.
The operational expenses (OPEX), pre-
sented in Fig. 7 b, were calculated by a fac-
tor method of Seader, Seider, and Lewin
[10]. These costs are mainly determined by
the raw materials (75 %). The cost of pro-
duction per kilogram of product varies
from 0.7 –0.79 $ kg–1. Assuming an internal
rate of return (IRR) of 15 % and deprecia-
tion in ten years, a negative cash flow of
900 M$ was calculated. The actual diesel
price is approximately 1.10 $ kg–1 and
should become 1.35 $ kg–1 to make this
process economically attractive for palm
oil; or the price of palm oil should decrease
from approximately 0.75 to less than
0.50 $ kg–1. Based on the prices of raw
materials, the viable diesel prices using
Jatropha oil, lard, and tallow are 1.43, 1.98,
and 1.67 $ kg–1, respectively. In conclusion, the process is tech-
nically possible, but requires additional funding or a govern-
mental incentive for large-scale implementation, based on the
actual diesel price [27].
4 Conclusions
A detailed process design study was performed, providing an
overview of all aspects of the production of green diesel and jet
fuel by hydrotreating vegetable oils. Improvements on the design
can be made by reviewing other catalysts and process conditions
in the reactors, and modeling the second reactor as well. Steam
reforming of the propane-rich effluent gas for self-sufficient
hydrogen consumption seems to be an attractive alternative.
The current design shows high reaction conversions based
on literature data. Therefore, high recovery of energy (75 %),
mass (73 %), and carbon (81 %) in the main products are ob-
tained. Major losses are caused by the relatively large amount
of by-product propane, CO, and CO2.
The flexibility of the process was studied for different feed-
stock and the relative amounts of diesel and jet fuel in the final
product mix. At higher temperatures, more jet fuel is produced
at the cost of diesel but the total revenues decrease due to a
lower price for jet fuel.
Figure 7. Diagrams of (a) capital
(CAPEX) and (b) operational ex-
penditures (OPEX) of the HVO
process.
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Research Article 7

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Chem. Eng. Technol. 2015, 38, No. 00, 1–8 ª 2015 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim www.cet-journal.com
’’ These are not the final page numbers!

8 Research Article

Research Article: The process of Green Diesel from Hydrotreated

hydrotreating vegetable oils is a
promising alternative to the production
of conventional biodiesel, because it
can be integrated into existing refining
infrastructure. The process flexibility
with respect to the type of feedstock as
well as the controllability of the product
mix of jet fuel and diesel was included
in this detailed design study, covering
all aspects of process plant design.
Vegetable Oil Process Design Study
T. J. Hilbers*, L. M. J. Sprakel*,
L. B. J. van den Enk, B. Zaalberg,
H. van den Berg, L. G. J. van der Ham
Chem. Eng. Technol. 2015, 38 (¢),
XXX K XXX
DOI: 10.1002/ceat.201400648

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