Understanding the glycerol market

Abstract

As a result of the booming biodiesel and oleochemicals manufacturing taking place worldwide since more than a decade, 2 million tonnes of glycerol consistently reach the market every year, even though after a decade of growth the total glycerol supply is expected to slightly decrease in 2014. Today the supply of glycerol is entirely independent of its demand, as there is as much glycerol as the amount of vegetable oils and animal fats are hydrolyzed to make oleochemicals, or transesterified to produce biodiesel. This unique situation has led to consistently low glycerol prices, which initiated both the market penetration of glycerol in countries where it was not used due to traditional high price, as well as new uses of glycerol as raw material for the production of value added chemicals. This article sheds light on the market of this uniquely versatile chemical whose number of applications is unique amid all existing chemicals.

Upgrading Lignocellulosic Biomasses: Hydrogenolysis of Platform Derived Molecules Promoted by Heterogeneous Pd-Fe Catalysts

“…Glycerol (C3 polyol), the main by-product obtained from the biodiesel production, is gaining importance as bio-feedstock to produce chemicals, because of the growing worldwide expansion of biofuels [31][32][33]. An attractive valorization route is the selective hydrogenolysis of glycerol because it is a clean and economically competitive process that allows production of different valuable chemicals such as 1,2-propanediol (1,2-PDO), 1,3-propanediol (1,3-PDO), ethylene glycol (EG) and C1-C3 alcohols [34].…”

“…Sorbitol (C6 polyol), xylitol (C5 polyol) and glycerol (C3 polyol) have been included, by the USA Department of Energy, in the list of 12 potential biomass-derived platform chemicals [30]. Moreover, among the family of biomass derived polyols, glycerol (C3 polyol) has become a primary building block being the main by-product in the biodiesel production [31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38].…”

Thermogravimetric investigation of sol–gel microspheres doped with aqueous glycerol

“…The use of glycerol as component of the polyol blend (the Component A at OCF producers) to cure PU foams in place of oil-derived polyols is rapidly increasing [8,9], as its historically high price dropped following large overproduction as by-product from the biodiesel and oleochemicals manufacturing [10]. The higher amount of hydroxyl groups in the glycerol molecule (compared to monomeric glycols) results in considerably lower percentage of free monomeric MDI and higher crosslinking of the cured foam, which in its turn results in less curing shrinkage and less outflow of the sprayed material.…”

Crude glycerol negatively affects rabbit spermatozoa motility in vitro

“…Biodiesel industry is constantly producing crude glycerol as a by-product from biofuel fabrication through the NaOH-or KOH-catalysed transesterification of triacylglycerols (Ma and Hanna, 1999;Van Gerpen, 2005;Thompson and He, 2006). Rising energy prices and environmental pollution from the combustion of fossil fuels enforce global production of biodiesel (Ma and Hanna, 1999;Hill et al, 2006;Kurki et al, 2010) so that 2 millions of tons of crude glycerol constantly reach the market every year (Expedito, 2003;Ciriminna et al, 2014). The ready availability of crude glycerol makes it a promising alternative to the energy-rich diet used in animal nutrition, which could cover the energy needs of livestock (Kijora et al, 1995;Rosebrough et al, 1996;Simon et al, 1996;Cerrate et al, 2006).…”