Introduction
We've heard this argument time and again - we're running out of fossil fuels, crude oil prices are skyrocketing, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from automotives and industry are polluting the air and severely worsening the devastating climate crisis. Especially in India, which is home to 83 of the world's 100 most polluted cities, we need alternatives to fossil-derived petroleum and diesel. Biodiesel plant manufacturers in India have never had a more important role to play.
There are many sustainable alternatives to conventional fuels. Think renewable diesel, i.e. hydrotreated vegetable oil and bioethanol. Nonetheless, biodiesel is the most popular option. Similar to conventional diesel in structure and behaviour, it can be produced from edible and non-edible plant oils, animal fats, tallow, and waste or used cooking oil (UCO). Biodiesel is renewable, biodegradable, non-toxic, and free of sulphur and aromatic hydrocarbons. It has its environmental drawbacks in terms of its emission of nitrogen oxides. Still, it does not emit as much carbon dioxide, particulate matter, and other greenhouse gases, making it less polluting than fossil diesel. The cherry on the biodiesel cake is the safety in its handling and its lubricity benefits.
Sounds like biodiesel plants in India should be flourishing, right? However, biodiesel plant manufacturers in India aren't seeing as much of a boom in demand as we would think. As with many problems, the determining factor here has been economic. You see, the economics of biofuels (and especially the economics of biodiesel production) don't quite add up.
Despite all the environmental benefits biodiesel offers, it has not successfully replaced conventional diesel. Some of the reasons for this concern raw material availability and behavioural inertia. However, as many researchers have indicated, the high cost of setting up a biodiesel plantin India is the main factor at play here.
If biodiesel adoption is to keep up with growing energy demands in the heavily populated Indian subcontinent, biodiesel plant manufacturers in India must find a way to make biodiesel production more feasible.
Let us explore the specifics of biodiesel manufacturing so that we can understand the costs involved and how the economics of biodiesel production can be made more favourable.
How is biodiesel manufactured?
Biodiesel is produced by the transesterification or alcoholysis of triacylglycerols (TAGs). This reversible reaction results in the formation of fatty acid alkyl esters, which is what we use as biodiesel. This reaction is carried out using an alcohol; since methanol is the commonly used alcohol, the most common form of biodiesel is fatty acid methyl esters, or FAME. However, when, say, ethanol is used instead, you can also obtain fatty acid ethyl esters (FAEE).
Simply put, to produce biodiesel, acylglycerols react with an alcohol to produce an ester. This reaction may take place in the presence of a catalyst. The catalyst may be a chemical or an enzyme. The former may be homogenous or heterogenous catalysts, while the latter is usually a lipase. If no catalyst is used, the alcoholysis reaction occurs at high pressure and temperature conditions - while such a reaction is possible, it doesn't yet have any practical application. Therefore, in most biodiesel plants in India, catalytic transesterification is the go-to process.
The economics of a biodiesel plant in India
The total investment in a biodiesel plant in India is determined by the choice of production technology, the scale of the operation, and the market price of the raw materials chosen. Largely, the investment into a biodiesel plant in India can be separated into fixed capital investment cost and operating cost. An examination of the biofuels manufacturing process reveals that there are certain pathways to bring the economics of biodiesel production under control. Specifically, there are three potential approaches to reducing unit costs when it comes to the economics of biofuels.
First, biodiesel plant manufacturers in India can improve production technologies so that biodiesel plants can achieve better yield and productivity. Second, biodiesel plants in India can try to reduce their capital costs. Under these capital investment costs, installed equipment claims the lion's share, so once again, biodiesel plant manufacturers in India have a major role to play. Third, biodiesel plants in India can try to reduce the cost of inputs. Feasibility studies have revealed that the cost of feedstock is one of the largest components of the overall cost of producing biodiesel. In fact, feedstock costs can account for as much as 70 to 95% of the total biodiesel production cost. So, finding cheap feedstocks for biodiesel manufacturing can have a significant impact on the overall economics of biofuels production. Additionally, using cheap and reusable acid catalysts is also a useful way to bring down total manufacturing costs.
While these are the general pathways to achieving cost reductions, each of these requires more detailed economic analyses to find the best alternatives in terms of production technology, catalyst, feedstock type, and biodiesel purification technologies. Some permutations may offer lower total energy input, others may offer faster transesterification, and some may depend solely on reducing input costs.
The economics of biodiesel production from non-edible plant oils
Currently, edible oils account for as much as 95% of global biodiesel production. However, due to their important culinary applications, using edible oils as feedstock for biodiesel creates a food vs fuel competition for the resource. The increased demand for edible oils also drives up their prices in both, the food and fuel industries.
The ideal solution would be for biodiesel plants in India to shift their focus to non-edible oils. Such oils are unsuitable for human consumption. For instance, jatropha plants contain the toxic protein curcin, castor plants contain the protein ricin, and karanja oil contains the flavonoids pongamiin and karajiin. They are also typically cheaper than edible oils. Additionally, such crops can be grown on lands which are unsuitable for the cultivation of edible crops.
Not all aspects of biodiesel production from non-edible oils have received adequate attention. Nonetheless, there has been research on reducing the high viscosity of fuels produced from non-edible oils, their engine performances, and methods to reduce the free fatty acid (FFA) content of such feedstocks. Research has also paid particular attention to biodiesel manufacturing from jatropha oil in Indonesia, Malaysia, and India.
At the end of the day, policymakers, biodiesel manufacturers, and biodiesel plant manufacturers in India have to come together to find ways to make this environmentally sustainable fuel economically sustainable as well. Regardless, even if the unit economics of biodiesel production don't make financial sense in the short term, investing in biodiesel production can have wider economic impacts by generating employment and encouraging economic development across India and the world. By investing in biodiesel plants, India can also prepare itself for a future in which fossil-based resources are very scarce. Finally, having an extensive network of biodiesel plants in the country can reduce the country's dependence on petroleum imports, with such energy security giving India critical strategic, economic, and trade benefits. What are you waiting for? There's no better time than now to reach out to biodiesel plant manufacturers in India.
