Hydrotreated Vegetable Oils (HVO) also referred to as Hydroprocessed Esters and Fatty Acids (HEFA) are alternative renewable fuels to biodiesel. They are straight chain paraffinic hydrocarbons, free of oxygen and with a high cetane number. These fuels are produced via hydrotreatment of a wide variety of feedstock such as vegetable oils, animal fats and fatty acids. The apparent versatility of feedstock origin and quality is evidently an advantage but at the same time, it introduces some challenges in the pretreatment process prior to hydrotreatment. Pretreated feedstock needs to meet very strict specifications, not exceeding a few parts per million, for phosphorus, alkali metals, chlorine and other contaminants Reaching these strict specs is particularly difficult for cheaper, lower quality feedstock such as acid oils, certain animal fats and side streams such as distillates and distillation pitches. In this presentation, a number of effective pretreatment processes for various HVO/HEFA feedstock will be discussed.
