The present disclosure relates to a process for refining crude oils using a combination of a chemical process and mega-sonic treatment to simultaneously and efficiently separate oil and gum phases. In particular, the present disclosure relates to a process for refining crude oils using a combination of chemical processes followed by megasonic treatment to effectively separate and recover entrained oil from a gum phase to increase the oil yield, and to produce an oil of higher quality with reduced gum content. The present disclosure also relates to a process for refining crude oils using a combination of chemical processes followed by megasonic treatment to effectively separate and recover entrained gums from an oil phase to increase the gum yield, and to produce a gum of higher quality with reduced oil content. The present disclosure also relates to obtaining refined oils and refined gums from the process described herein.

The invention provides a method for the purifying of low-quality glyceridic material usually unfit for use as feed or food. The method includes a thermal treatment of the low-quality glyceridic material and chemical treatments. The purified oils and fat are suitable feed-stock or suitable components thereof for a hydrogenation processes yielding to high quality renewable diesel. The process thus permits the recycling of waste material that is usually discarded, into a valuable high-quality fuel.

The invention provides a method for the purifying of low-quality glyceridic material usually unfit for use as feed or food. The method includes a thermal treatment of the low-quality glyceridic material and chemical treatments. The purified oils and fat are suitable feed-stock or suitable components thereof for a hydrogenation processes yielding to high quality renewable diesel. The process thus permits the recycling of waste material that is usually discarded, into a valuable high-quality fuel.

The present disclosure relates to the design of structural features that enable the facile and reproducible fabrication of a microfluidic reactor that eliminates the problem of scaling factors in turn enabling the broad integration of microchannel reactors to industrial scale production. The process is highlighted via the effective and successful scale up of a purification process for the removal of a variety of different classes of impurities from crude vegetable oils mixtures into feedstocks that can be directly integrated into the hydrotreatment vegetable oil hydrogenation process for mass production of synthetic diesel derived from renewable sources.

A method of extracting oil from biological raw material includes creating a slurry of biological raw material, raising or lowering a pH of the slurry to separate lipid and protein components in the slurry, further separating the lipid and protein components into a first lipid rich phase and a protein rich phase, adjusting a pH of the first lipid rich phase to a point at which additional proteins in the first lipid rich phase coagulate, and recovering a second lipid rich phase from the additional coagulated proteins.

A method of extracting oil from biological raw material includes creating a slurry of biological raw material, raising or lowering a pH of the slurry to separate lipid and protein components in the slurry, further separating the lipid and protein components into a first lipid rich phase and a protein rich phase, adjusting a pH of the first lipid rich phase to a point at which additional proteins in the first lipid rich phase coagulate, and recovering a second lipid rich phase from the additional coagulated proteins.

Biological compositions containing animal fats and plant oils desirably are free of contaminants prior to processing into a biofuel. Disclosed herein is a method of removing such contaminants from these compositions to make that processing more efficient. The method employs a unique arrangement of mixers and centrifuges along with acidic solutions and recycle streams to remove these contaminants from the compositions.

Biological compositions containing animal fats and plant oils desirably are free of contaminants prior to processing into a biofuel. Disclosed herein is a method of removing such contaminants from these compositions to make that processing more efficient. The method employs a unique arrangement of mixers and centrifuges along with acidic solutions and recycle streams to remove these contaminants from the compositions.

A method is disclosed of purifying a recycled or renewable organic material, wherein the recycled or renewable organic material includes more than 1 ppm silicon as silicon compounds and/or more than 10 ppm phosphorous as phosphorous compounds. The method can include providing a feed of the lipid material; heat treating the organic material in presence of an adsorbent and the filtering organic material and hydrotreating the lipid material in a presence of a hydrotreating catalyst to obtain purified hydrotreated organic material having less than 20% organic material and/or less than 30% of the original phosphorous content of the organic material.

A process and apparatus for recovering crude tall oil are disclosed. Acidulation of a crude tall oil soap stream generates a spent acid stream that comprises lignin and entrained crude tall oil. By subjecting the spent acid stream to dissolved gas flotation, a lignin phase comprising entrained crude tall oil can be recovered and causticized, resulting in recovery of most of the crude tall oil that was present in the spent acid stream. A clarified spent acid stream is also generated, which can be treated with caustic and utilized for a soap washing process that integrates easily into the overall CTO recovery process. The apparatus comprises a crude tall oil acidulation unit, a dissolved gas flotation unit, a causticizing unit, and a soap separation unit. The inventive process marries dissolved gas flotation, a well-known water treatment process, with causticization of a recovered lignin phase, a step known from batch acidulation, to improve overall tall oil recovery from a continuous process.