From Glycerol to Value‐Added Products

Angewandte Chemie - International Edition - Tập 46 Số 24 - Trang 4434-4440 - 2007
Mario Pagliaro1, Rosaria Ciriminna2, Hiroshi Kimura3, Michele Rossi4, Cristina Della Pina4
1Institute for Scientific Methodology, and Istituto per lo Studio dei Materiali Nanostrutturati, CNR via Ugo La Malfa 153, 90146 Palermo, Italy, Fax: (+39) 091‐680‐9247
2Istituto per lo Studio dei Materiali Nanostrutturati, CNR, Via Ugo La Malfa 153, 90146, Palermo, Italy
3Kokura Synthetic Industries, Ltd. 1‐4‐8 Higashi Minato, Kokura‐Kita‐ku, 803‐0802 Kita‐Kyushu‐City, Japan
4Dipartimento di Chimica Inorganica, Università degli Studi via Venezian 21, 20133 Milano, Italy

Tóm tắt

AbstractToday, industrial plants that produce glycerol are closing down and others are opening that use glycerol as a raw material, owing to the large surplus of glycerol formed as a by‐product during the production of biodiesel. Research efforts to find new applications of glycerol as a low‐cost feedstock for functional derivatives have led to the introduction of a number of selective processes for converting glycerol into commercially valued products. This Minireview describes a selection of such achievements and shows how glycerol will be a central raw material in future chemical industries.

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Tài liệu tham khảo

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See the recent report from Frost & Sullivan: “R&D Creating New Avenues for Glycerol” (August 4 2006) available online athttps://www.frost.com/prod/servlet/market‐insight‐top.pag?docid=77264824.

The US agribusiness company Archer Daniels Midland recently announced plans to make propylene glycol from glycerol instead of propylene oxide. Dow Chemical closed its glycerol plant in Texas early this year when Procter & Gamble Chemicals shut down a natural glycerol refinery in England. See:

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As of July 2006 pure glycerol was sold at 600–800 €/ton while crude glycerol of high quality obtained by biodiesel production was sold at 600–700 €/ton with glycerol currently priced at around 850 USD/ton. At prices approaching 770 USD/ton glycerol becomes a significant platform chemical. If as anticipated biodiesel production grows to 3.23 million tons worldwide an extra 323 000 tons of glycerol would reach the market thus rendering glycerol a readily available commodity.

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Crude glycerol from biodiesel production is an excellent additive for concrete enhancing its resistance to compression and grinding and lowering its setting time. Mechanical tests carried out on “clinker” (the cement precursor which is mixed with gypsum to yield the concrete) samples doped with crude glycerol show in all cases that raw glycerol imparts better mechanical and chemical properties compared to those samples doped with commercial additives including pure glycerol. Tests on an industrial scale using trucks of crude glycerol confirmed the results on the laboratory scale and commercialization of cement added with biodiesel glycerol started in late 2006.M.Rossi M.Pagliaro R.Ciriminna C.Della Pina W.Kesber WO2006051574 2004.

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By the Netherlands‐based consortium Procedé Group bv with the involvement of industrial partners. According to an EU directive by the year 2010 5.75 % of the total amount of fuel consumed in the EU should originate from renewable sources. In Germany alone this would mean 30 million tons equivalent to 3 million tons of glycerol or to 10 millions tons of GTBE (a likely antidetonant). If realized it could be easily absorbed by the market as large amounts of TBE are already available on the market as it used as the starting material of MTBE still in the EU (but it is banned in California and 19 other US states).

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For instance NOF Corporation in Japan recently developed a new antifreeze (Camag) composed of glycerol and potassium acetate to prevent freezing of roads in the cold northern district of Japan.

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Small‐scale production of these highly branched glycidol polymers has been commercialized in Europe by Hyperpolymers (Germany).

Solvay is building a facility utilizing this new process which should be operative in the first half of 2007 with the required glycerol supplied from the biodiesel producer Diester Industrie.