Impact of biodiesel production on a soybean biorefinery

Thaís Barreiros, André Young, Raquel Cavalcante and Eduardo Queiroz

Renewable Energy, 2020, vol. 159, issue C, 1066-1083

Abstract: Biodiesel, mainly produced from soybean, is an alternative to replace fossil fuels and to decrease the Brazilian external dependence on petrochemical diesel. However, soybean represents almost 85% of biodiesel production costs and government subsidies are necessary in order to make biodiesel production feasible. A possible solution to this problem is to look to the steps upstream of alkaline transesterification, like oil extraction and refining, where co-products can be isolated, making the soybean processing chain a biorefinery. This work aims to economically evaluate this idea and to show the real impact of biodiesel and the co-products on the biorefinery profitability. Operational and economic parameters were obtained from literature and were adjusted according to time, place, and flowrate. As a result, it is shown that biodiesel production can be profitable, but it should not be seen as the main destination for soybean and provided there is a market for its other fractions.

Keywords: Biodiesel; Soybean; Biorefinery; Co-products; Economic analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:159:y:2020:i:c:p:1066-1083

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2020.06.064

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