Drop-in Fuels Production From Biofeedstocks Using the Current Refinery Infrastructures

This paper will give an overview of the current status of drop-in fuels production from biofeedstocks, including vegetable oils, plant seed oils, biomass pyrolysis oils, and microalgae oils.  Blending the biofeedstocks into the hydrocarbon streams in the current refinery infrastructures provides great advantages for future refining industries, including: 1) minimizing CAPEX cost; 2) taking the advantage of synergy effect between refining of conventional oxygen-deficient hydrocarbon feedstocks and oxygen enriched biofuels; 3) reducing emissions and CO₂ footprint. Biofeedstocks stabilization is necessary. Revamping of the current refinery infrastructure for such co-processing will increase flexibility of the refining industry. This paper will also address the pretreatment requirements for biofeedstocks and guard bed design for the hydrotreating unit. A lot of challenges still remain in catalyst design and short life-time for hydrotreating of oxygenated compounds by hydrodeoxygenation and hydrodecarboxylation. Handling different heteroatoms, especially phosphorus contaminants in the feedstock originated from phospholipids in biomass feedstock, is still in learning curve to the refinery.