PRODUCTION OF HIGH-QUALITY CETANE ENHANCER FROM DEPITCHED TALL OIL

Tall oil (anglicized Swedish term for pine oil) is a co-product in the Kraft pulping of resinous softwood trees such as spruce and pine. A t ech?ology to convert tall oil into high quality diesel additive has be en developed and licensed to Arbokem of Vancouver to market the proces s worldwide. Laboratory and pilot-scalp, studies were carried out to c haracterize the product properties and to determine the fundamental an d engineering parameters for process scale-up. The tall oil was suppli ed by BC Chemicals of Prince George, B.C. Pilot plant runs were also c arried out to generate volumes of the diesel cut for blending with a b ase diesel provided by Petro-Canada Products. The blend (PineDiesel) w as used for road tests by Canada Post Corporation and for emission tes ts by Environment Canada. This paper describes the tall oil conversion at pilot-plant scale. A lumped parameter kinetics model used to guide the process is also presented.