Biodiesel potential in Iceland

• Main Author: Borkowska, Swietlana, 1980-
• Other Authors: Háskólinn á Akureyri
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Subjects: RES. The School for Renewable Energy Science; Meistaraprófsritgerðir; Lífræn efnasambönd; Ísland; Eldsneytisframleiðsla; Renewable energy sources; Akureyri; Iceland
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1946/11758

RES Master´s Thesis Verkefnið er unnið í tengslum við Háskóla Íslands og Háskólann á Akureyri The importance of increasing the global share of biofuels in transportation goes without saying. Iceland, where the consumption of fossil fuels is considerable, has a viable potential for introducing biodiesel in its otherwise exceptional renewable overall energy portfolio. In this study, a full picture of the possibilities of biodiesel production in Iceland was provided. After the theoretical introduction of allmajor aspects of a biodiesel economy, an assessment of its applicability in Iceland was performed. A survey of potential feedstocks was performed. It was concluded that in a short term perspective, a small scale production (300-2,000 tons/yr) can be carried out using domestically available waste raw material, and fullscale production (15,000-80,000 tons/yr) will depend on imported feedstock. After laboratory research, including waste vegetable oil (WVO), the main domestic feedstock currently available, the recommendation for the production process of a small production plant was made. It includes acid esterification of free fatty acids (FFA) followed by alkali transesterification and methanolrecovery from the reacted mixture. At this stage, distillation of crude FAME was suggested, however further research is necessary. The full scale production could substitute 8%-44% of the fossil diesel fuel needs for transportation and machinery. The estimated production costs in a full scale biodiesel plant, 0.63-0.76 EUR/L, are within the European average.