Desmet Ballestra is the world leader in the fields of engineering and supply of plants and equipment for the edible oils and fats industry, the detergent, surfactants and related chemical industry, the oleochemical and biodiesel industry, the soap and glycerine industry. Desmet Ballestra benefits from the great worldwide reputation, thanks to 60 years unequalled experience, a strong R&D capacity and most extensive customer references in the industry.

The group has a network of 15 local subsidiaries throughout the world and a track record of setting up more than 6,000 processing units in 148 countries. Desmet Ballestra has now an integrated allowing us to coordinate our worldwide activities making the best use of the very important technical, technologies and commercial synergies existing between our operations and to provide competitive services, plants and equipment based on latest technologies and globally sourced. Technical innovation and privileged customer relationship is the key strategy of the Desmet Ballestra Group, which will be able to provide to the customers the best technologies trough an integrated international network of companies.

Speaker’s Profile
De Greyt Wim is R&D Manager at Desmet-Ballestra. He graduated in 1988 as Engineer Food Technology from the Faculty of Applied Biological Sciences at the University of Ghent. He later obtained a PhD degree at same University in 1998 with a study on the ‘Effect of Physical Refining on Selected Minor Components in Vegetable Oils’. Dr. Wim joined De Smet in 1998, first as R&D project leader and from 2000 as R&D Manager. Today, he is managing the Desmet-Ballestra R&D Centre located in Brussels, Belgium. At the R&D centre, a group of 15 specialized R&D staff work on different R&D projects in the areas of oilseed extraction, oil refining and modification and biodiesel production.

JatrophaWorld 2008 Jakarta Speaker
Day 2 - Thursday, 24th January, 2008
14:05 JATROPHA OIL EXTRACTION TECHNOLOGY – MECHANICAL VS. SOLVENT

The current high prices of the traditional biodiesel feedstocks (rapeseed oil, soybean oil, palm oil…) have put the biodiesel processing industry under serious pressure and have urged the need for new, preferably non-edible feedstocks that can become available in large quantities and at an acceptable cost price. Together with algae oil, jatropha oil is considered to be the most promising and sustainable biodiesel feedstock for the future.
Jatropha oil is extracted from the seeds of jatropha curcas which is a drought resistant tree that grows on poor soils and wastelands which cannot be used for the cultivation of traditional agricultural crops.

Presentation Overview

Jatropha seeds contain ± 30% oil and can be separated in a fiber-rich hull fraction (± 40% of the seed) and a kernel fraction in which almost all the oil is concentrated. Hence, the oil content of the kernel can be very high (± 50%).

Jatropha seeds are processed today mostly artisanally in small local plants. The oil is recovered from the seeds with mechanical expellers that are able to extract 70 -75% of the oil.  As a by-product, partially deoiled jatropha meal with ± 10% residual oil is obtained. Due to the presence of toxins (phorbol esters), this product can not be used as used in animal feed. It seems to have some potential as bio-fertilizer or can also be used as biomass for energy production.

Higher oil yields can be obtained either via a full or double mechanical pressing or via pre-pressing followed by a solvent extraction. Pilot scale trials have shown that more than 90% of the jatropha oil can be extracted from jatropha seeds by combined pre-pressing of partially dehulled seeds followed by a solvent extraction of the pressed cake. The extracted meal has a low oil content (< 1%) and high crude protein concentration (but will only be applicable in animal feed after proper detoxification.

Jatropha oil is a rather unsaturated with typically ± 35% linoleic acid, 40-42% oleic acid and 20-22% saturated fatty acids (15-17% palmitic and 5-7% stearic acid) resulting in an Iodine Value ranging between 95 and 105. Good quality crude jatropha oil has a rather low phosphatide content (< 0.25%) and a free fatty acid  content comparable to that of crude palm oil (3-5%). It has usually very low sulphur levels (< 5 ppm) and contains no other critical impurities that can interfere during the biodiesel production process. Pretreatment of crude jatropha oil prior to transesterification may consist of an acid degumming process or silica treatment in combination with a physical deacidification.

Transesterification of properly pretreated Jatropha oil should give a biodiesel that meets the international quality standards. Jatropha biodiesel has a CFPP value that will vary normally between 0°C and -2°C which makes that it has slightly worse cold flow properties compared to rapeseed and soy biodiesel, but still a far better cold stability that biodiesel obtained from more saturated feedstocks like palm oil or tallow.

The above mentioned expert shared his insights at JatrophaWorld Jakarta 2008, which was held on 23-24 January 2008 & welcomed over 350 Jatropha experts, industry players and entrepreneurs from 40 countries, making it the single largest Jatropha business forum in the world. JatrophaWorld Miami 2008, the second conference in the series will be held on 9-11 June 2008 in beautiful downtown Miami. Visit www.futureenergyevents.com/jatropha/attend to REGISTER TODAY for this exciting second conference in the series.