Biodiesel outlook

Diesel is a lightweight petroleum product, the most important use is for vehicles, ships diesel engines
.
Biodiesel refers to the use of oil crops, wild oil plants and engineering microalgae and other aquatic vegetable oils and fats, as well as animal oil, waste catering oil, etc.
as raw materials, through the esterification process made of methyl ester or ethyl ester fuel, is a mixture of complex organic components with high oxygen content, can replace diesel as fuel, is a renewable clean energy
.
Under the increasing promotion of environmental protection and the "double carbon" goal, biodiesel has become one of the hot spots in today's international new energy development due to the advantages of less environmental pollution, safe use and wide range of
use.

This paper first elucidates the research significance of biodiesel from the aspects of environment and energy, then analyzes the current situation of global biodiesel production, then compares the production technology and methods of biodiesel, and finally looks forward to the development prospects of biodiesel, and puts forward suggestions
from the aspects of increasing government support and production technology.

1 Research significance of biodiesel

Biodiesel is a typical "green energy"
.
Vigorously developing biodiesel is of great significance
to promoting energy substitution, reducing environmental pressure, and controlling urban air pollution.

The fuel performance of biodiesel is relatively close to that of petroleum-based diesel, which mainly has the following advantages:

(1) Good
fuel performance.
Biodiesel has a high cetane number and better ignition performance than petroleum diesel; Biodiesel has a high oxygen content and combustion more fully
.

(2) Protect power equipment
.
The kinematic viscosity of biodiesel is higher than that of petroleum diesel, which can reduce the wear
of the parts.

(3) Strong climate adaptability and wide
scope of application.

(4) Good
environmental performance.

(5) Good versatility and high
safety performance.

The following disadvantages exist:

(1) From the perspective of calorific value, the calorific value of biodiesel is slightly lower than that of petroleum diesel
.

(2) From the perspective of NOx emissions when making automobile fuel, the emission of biodiesel is slightly higher than that of petroleum diesel
.

(3) From the perspective of raw materials, the properties of biodiesel caused by different raw materials are quite different, and some may require appropriate additives
.

2 Production status of biodiesel

The European Union and the United States are the world's largest producers and consumers of
biodiesel.
Although the European Union and the United States have the largest production volumes, supply still outstrips demand
.
In recent years, the EU has become the world's largest economy
in terms of biodiesel consumption.
In 2019, the EU accounted for 29%
of global biodiesel production.
In terms of consumption in EU countries, France ranks first in mixed biodiesel consumption, followed by Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom and Italy
.
In July 2021, the European Union revised the Renewable Energy Directive (RED II), which mentions that renewable fuels will account for 26% of the transport sector by 2030 (14% higher than the current regulations), and the renewable energy market, including biodiesel, has ushered in another development opportunity
.

According to statistics released by the U.
S.
Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Foreign Agricultural Services in August 2020, from 2010 to 2019, China's biodiesel production capacity showed a trend
of first increasing and then declining.
In 2015, the national biodiesel production capacity reached its peak, followed by a sharp decline in crude oil prices, resulting in a reduction in biodiesel production capacity; In 2019, China's biodiesel production capacity was 2.
68 billion liters, and the output was 900 million liters
.

China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) is the largest oil and gas producer and seller dominant in China's oil and gas industry, and one of the world's important producers and sellers of
petroleum and petrochemical products.
China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation is the largest supplier of refined oil and petrochemical products in China and the world's largest oil refining company
.
For the biodiesel industry, market cultivation is a rather slow process
.
Because China's petroleum is mainly controlled by the above two leading enterprises, although biodiesel has many advantages, but because it cannot enter the main sales channels of PetroChina and Sinopec, biodiesel cannot enter the transportation fuel system, and the sales channels cannot be opened, resulting in the development of China's biodiesel industry in a bottleneck period
for a long time.

3 Industrial production methods of biodiesel

There are three main ways to manufacture biodiesel internationally:

First, the use of edible oil to produce biodiesel;

The second is the use of bagasse fermentation to produce diesel;

The third is to use "engineering microalgae" to produce diesel
.

From the perspective of production raw materials, the EU biodiesel production raw materials are mainly rapeseed oil, the United States and South American countries are mainly soybean oil, and Indonesia uses palm oil to produce biodiesel
.
The main industrial production methods of biodiesel are obtained by chemical method
.

At present, the raw materials for the production of biodiesel in China mainly use gutter oil, acidified oil, mixed fatty acids, and waste animal and vegetable oils according to the different raw materials by using acid catalytic method, acid-base two-step method, hydrogenation method, biological enzyme method, separation reaction method and other methods for corresponding combination of production
.
In order to develop more efficient and environmentally friendly production technologies, more and more efficient new process technologies
for the production of biodiesel have been studied since 2019.
The principles and advantages and disadvantages of various methods are shown in Table 1
.

4 The development direction of biodiesel

With the increasing global requirements for environmental protection, the development of renewable energy with biodiesel as the main representative will continue to accelerate
.
At present, the development of global biodiesel is still in its infancy, and there is still a large room
for development in the future.

Crude oil prices and policies are the main factors
affecting the development of biodiesel.
Through the adoption of national policies such as differential taxation and raw material production subsidies for biodiesel, Europe and the United States have enabled biodiesel to compete with petroleum diesel in terms of price, and at the same time seek new ways to improve biodiesel production
through scientific and technological research.

Due to uneven development and other reasons, biodiesel still has various technical problems
.
However, from the perspective of the development of European and American countries, technological problems can be broken
.
According to the current status quo of biodiesel, the focus of future development should be on raw materials and research and development of new production technologies
.

(1) Raw materials: pay attention to their safety and stability
.
Focus on the research and development of other low-cost, high-utilization of new raw materials
.

(2) New technology research and development: supercritical transesterification process technology; Microalgae constructed through genetic engineering techniques open up new avenues for diesel production; Support scientific research and development of new products
with high utilization rate of raw materials.
The preparation technology of new biodiesel will continue to develop and gradually achieve industrial production, so as to continue to meet the growing demand for
biodiesel.

5 Conclusion

(1) As a renewable clean energy, biodiesel is an alternative fuel
that deserves to be vigorously promoted.

(2) Crude oil prices and policies are the main factors
affecting the development of biodiesel.
It is recommended that the state encourage and guide more enterprises to carry out biodiesel research and development by formulating relevant policies, and introduce corresponding national industry standards
.

(3) The key to biodiesel is raw material oil, and the focus of development should be focused on
raw materials and new technology research and development.