How is it made?

Renewable Diesel can be produced by several different technology pathways.

There are several technology pathways to produce renewable diesel including:

• Traditional hydrotreating—Used in petroleum refineries, hydrotreating involves reacting the feedstock (lipids) with hydrogen under elevated temperatures and pressures in the presence of a catalyst. This is the most common form of production.

• Biological sugar upgrading—This pathway uses a biochemical deconstruction process, similar to that used with cellulosic ethanol with the addition of organisms that convert sugars to hydrocarbons.

• Catalytic conversion of sugars—This pathway involves a series of catalytic reactions to convert a carbohydrate streams into hydrocarbon fuels.

• Gasification—During this process, biomass is thermally converted to syngas and catalytically converted to hydrocarbon fuels.

• Pyrolysis—This pathway involves the chemical decomposition of organic materials at elevated temperatures in the absence of oxygen. The process produces a liquid pyrolysis oil that can be upgraded to hydrocarbon fuels, either in a standalone process or as a feedstock for co-feeding with crude oil into a standard petroleum refinery.

• Hydrothermal processing—This process uses high pressure and moderate temperature to initiate chemical decomposition of biomass or wet waste materials to produce an oil that may be catalytically upgraded to hydrocarbon fuels.