Value-added uses for crude glycerol--a byproduct of biodiesel production

doi:10.1186/1754-6834-5-13

Biotechnol Biofuels. 2012; 5: 13.

Published online 2012 March 14. doi: 10.1186/1754-6834-5-13

PMCID: PMC3313861

Value-added uses for crude glycerol--a byproduct of biodiesel production

Fangxia Yang,^1,² Milford A Hanna,² and Runcang Sun³

¹College of forestry, Northwest Agricultural and Forestry University, Yangling 712100, P. R. China

²Department of Biological systems Engineering, Industrial Agricultural Products Center, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68583, USA

³Institute of Biomass Chemistry and Technology, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China

Corresponding author.

Fangxia Yang: fyang/at/unlnotes.unl.edu; Milford A Hanna: mhanna1/at/unl.edu; Runcang Sun: rcsun3/at/bjfu.edu.cn

Received December 2, 2011; Accepted March 14, 2012.

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Biodiesel is a promising alternative, and renewable, fuel. As its production increases, so does production of the principle co-product, crude glycerol. The effective utilization of crude glycerol will contribute to the viability of biodiesel. In this review, composition and quality factors of crude glycerol are discussed. The value-added utilization opportunities of crude glycerol are reviewed. The majority of crude glycerol is used as feedstock for production of other value-added chemicals, followed by animal feeds.

Keywords: Crude glycerol, Value-added utilization

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