Biodiesel influx means game's over for synthetic glycerin
Good thing I never got into the synthetic glycerin market. Thanks to the current boom in biodiesel production, a byproduct of making biodiesel, glycerin, is currently available in massive quantities. This means that makers of synthetic glycerin (like Dow and Solvay) have found little market for their wares and glycerin prices have dropped by about two-thirds in the past five years and are still headed down. Kline & Company (of $44,000 biodiesel report fame) is setting out to discover just what's going on in the glycerin market thanks to biodiesel. One Kline director said that, "Biodiesel producers have now become serious competitors in the glycerin market by selling a byproduct that they could just give away. If they can sell it, the economics of new biodiesel projects look even better, which could further boost the number of new facilities that come online."
[Source: Kline & Company]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-27-2006 @ 2:20PM
Howard Lee Harkness said...
Fortunately, glycerin is non-toxic and biodegradable. It is used as an emusifier and/or sweetener in some foods, although I don't much care for glycerin-sweetened syrups because they do raise blood sugar levels, despite claims to the contrary. It can also be used as a fuel, although it isn't a very good one. In order to bolster the biodiesel market, we need to come up with useful things to do with massive quantities of glycerin.
Personally, I'd like to see more research done in ways to use SVO, which would solve this problem, as well as being more economic (less processing involved, and no toxic chemicals needed). Seems to me that most of the problems with SVO would be solved by using a very small heated and well-insulated secondary fuel tank (maybe 8-10 oz), and maybe two or more fuel pumps.
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7-27-2006 @ 4:45PM
loikll said...
Yippee!! I can quit buying the store-brand glycerin, and buy the swanky stuff now.
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