With the rapid growth of global biodiesel consumption leading to significant amounts of glycerine being added to the market, a French researcher’s work to turn that glycerine glut into high value-added products was honored at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the American Oil Chemists’ Society (AOCS).
Dr. Franck Dumeignil, Full Professor at Lille University and Deputy Director of the School’s Unit of Catalysis and Solid State Chemistry, is the winner of the 2015 Glycerine Innovation Award, sponsored by the American Cleaning Institute (ACI) and the National Biodiesel Board (NBB).
The ACI/NBB Glycerine Innovation Award recognizes outstanding achievement for research into new applications for glycerine, with particular emphasis on commercial viability.
Prof. Dumeignil undertook his research in the context of the rapid growth of the biodiesel industry worldwide creating an urgent need to quickly and effectively convert crude glycerine into value-added chemical products. The research has enhanced the value of glycerine by successfully tackling many bottlenecking problems, with his research showing the potential to mass produce high value products from glycerine.
“The use of crude glycerine, much less costly than purified glycerol, is still a problem as its impurities are detrimental to the whole process efficiency,” said Prof. Dumeignil.
Glycerol is a syrupy and sweet-tasting chemical obtained by glycerine refining.
“Within my research team, we are developing innovations around new catalysts and new processes to tackle these issues. We work with industrial stakeholders to be as close as possible to the industrial reality and to fit with the market and customers’ demands. We are now moving to the pilot scale for some technologies we demonstrated at the lab scale.”
The Award has done more than honor winners – it has provided like-minded researchers with the names of yet unknown colleagues, as Prof. Dumeignil acknowledged with his group’s cooperation with another Award winner.
“We are now collaborating with the 2014 Glycerine Innovation awardee, Dr. Xiaofei “Philip” Ye, to gather our respective expertise in a profitable synergy toward optimized industrial glycerol applications.”
Prof. Dumeignil’s recent research in this area has been published in such journals as ACS Catalysis, Applied Catalysis B: Environmental, ChemSusChem and Green Chemistry.
The Glycerine Innovation Award includes a plaque and a $5,000 honorarium. It was presented at the AOCS Industrial Oil Products Division luncheon during the AOCS 2015 Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida.
