Tackling Wastewater Challenges in Renewable Diesel Production

Mounting economic, social and regulatory pressures are driving alternatives to petroleum-based fuels. Renewable diesel has grown in popularity and can be produced as a 100% drop-in fuel within existing refinery hydrotreaters from vegetable oil, greases or animal fat feedstocks. However, the wastewater generated from renewable diesel production is of much higher biological strength and lower volume than traditional refinery wastewater, making it much harder to treat. 

It all starts with pretreatment of feedstocks 

Pretreatment of renewable diesel feedstock is essential to reduce contaminants like trace metals, chlorides and phosphorus which can poison hydrotreating catalysts and corrode equipment. Most pretreatment systems use bleaching clay in a bleaching, degumming, filtration and deodorizing process. Feed pretreatment systems produce a wastewater stream that contains high levels of biological oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD) and fats, oils and greases (FOG), but also generates spent bleaching clay or silica which must be regularly disposed of. The conversion process produces a water condensate that is high in CO2/carbonates with sulfur (H2S) and ammonia and requires stripping to remove these contaminants. The combined wastewater is either treated onsite or in a downstream publicly-owned treatment works (POTW) facility. 

End-to-end treatment with peace of mind 

We can provide an end-to-end residual oil and waste-to-energy treatment process through a design-build-own-operate-maintain (DBOOM) with financing business model. We also provide performance guarantees to ensure satisfaction. Let our expert operators provide reliable and cost-effective wastewater treatment for your refinery so you can focus on the renewable diesel conversion process.