Biodiesel Challenges

1. Feedstock and Sustainability

• Agricultural based feedstocks are expensive and availability is limited.
• Less expensive feedstocks (animal fat, yellow grease, etc.) are limited, and require additional processing steps.
• Inexpensive non-food feedstock with up to 100% FFA content (tall oil fatty acids, palm fatty acid distillate, acidulated soapstock, recycled grease, etc.) can not be processed by first generation caustic technology.

2. Quality and Consistency

• Many small production facilities have not focused on the proper process engineering practices necessary to offer consistent product quality.
• Lack of uniform quality standards increases the likelihood of contamination along the supply chain.
• First generation technology has multiple steps that leads to inconsistent product quality.

3. Technology

• High production costs of first generation caustic technology.
• High capital cost of synthetic and renewable diesel technologies.
• Limited availability of economically feasible next generation technologies.

Feedstock cost and availability are the most significant challenges facing producers utilizing first generation caustic based biodiesel technology. Next generation non-caustic based technologies (like the HS Reactor System™) allow the biodiesel producers to tap an estimated 3.2 BGY of non-food feedstock not previously available. The table below shows the feedstock space.

HS Reactor System™ Processability Table 

Feedstock	%  FFA	Feedstock Cost	Volume MMGPY	First Generation	HS Reactor System™
Food Feedstock
Palm oil	0%	high	11,000
Soybean oil	0%	high	10,000
Other vegetable oil	0%	high	10,000
Non-Food Feedstock
Jathropa, camelina	0-10%	med
Animal fat	0-10%	med	4,500
Algae Oil	4-18%	med
Inedible DDG oil	17%	med	600
Recycled grease	5-100%	low to med	1,000
PFAD	100%	low to med	1,200
TOFA	100%	low to med	300
Acid oils	100%	low to med	100