We just offered a one-stop sourcing service for a client from Africa for their bio-diesel project, covering design, equipment and machinery sourcing, shipping and installation etc. Henan, Shandong, Hebei etc have the best oil-processing equipment and technology etc in China at the moment, especially the equipments from Henan, they account for more than 50% of the whole China market. 

What is biodiesel ?
Biodiesel is an alternative fuel similar to conventional or‘fossil'diesel.Biodiesel can be produced from straight vegetable oil, animal oil/fats, tallow and waste cooking oil. The process used to convert these oils to biodiesel is called transesterification.

What are the raw materials of bio-diesel production ?
A variety of oils can be used to produce biodiesel. These include:
Virgin oil feedstock- palm oil, rapeseed and soybean oils are most commonly used.
Used cooking oil (UCO);
Waste vegetable oil (WVO); 
Animal fats - tallow, lard, yellow grease, chicken fat etc;

How to make biodiesel ? 
The process of making biodiesel is known as transesterification. This process is achieved by adding methanol to vegetable oil. The process requires a catalyst to increase the rate of the chemical reaction between the methanol and vegetable oil. The catalyst used in the creation of biodiesel is an alkaline. Biodiesel production is the process of producing the biofuel, biodiesel, through the chemical reactions of transesterification and esterification. This involves vegetable or animal fats and oils being reacted with short-chain alcohols. The alcohols used should be of low molecular weight.

What is the process of biodiesel production ?
In China, from the used cooking oil to the bio-diesel, you need at least 5 processing phases: 
Pretreatment;
Esterification:
Methanol Distillation;
Transesterification;
Methyl Ester Distillation; 

What machinery and equipment does biodiesel-making need ? 
To complete above processing, you need lots of processing machinery and equipments like pumps, tanks, heaters, coolers, detectors, drying towers, condensers, distributors, degassers, oil collectors, evaporators, reactors, heat exchangers, kettles, drying column, lye pots, reboilers etc. All above equipment and machinery can be sourced in China. 

Where and how to source oil-processing equipments in China ?
China is the largest manufacturing bases for oil-processing equipment on the globe at present. It claims to have more than 1000 equipment oil-processing manufacturers scattering over 20 provinces and areas in Mainland China, among them, Henan, Shandong, Hebei, Helongjiang, Jilin etc account for 70% of the whole China market. 

If you need sourcing support in bio-diesel production, please feel free to contact us for details, STIN group is offering a one-stop sourcing solution service for your bio-diesel project in China.  

Source: STIN SOURCING TEAM