Scale-up and economic analysis of biodiesel production from recycled grease trap waste

Grease trap waste has been considered as a cost-effective feedstock for biodiesel production due to its high lipid content and relatively low cost for collection. However, the costly pre-treatment of this contaminated resource is currently the barrier to the commercialization of biodiesel. This study analyses the economic feasibility of biodiesel production from grease trap waste collected in Adelaide (South Australia), focussing on the environmental service providers as the potential biodiesel producers. Based on the experimental results, two different production routes with the same capacity of around 4400 t/year were simulated using Aspen Plus (R) V8.8, these being; esterification without using acetone as a co-solvent (1); and esterification using a co-solvent of acetone ethanol (2). The best production price of biodiesel obtained was US$1337.5/t which would indicate that grease trap waste may be a promising feedstock for biodiesel production.