Europe’s leading manufacturer of biofuels, Argent Energy, has begun groundworks for construction of a glycerine refinery in the Port of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The refinery will produce 50,000 tons (45,000 tonnes) of refined glycerine per year. Argent Energy is expanding its portfolio of sustainable products and will be entering the chemical market for the first time, with the launch of its sister site Argent Fuels.
This will be in line with Argent Energy’s vision to ‘reduce the world’s carbon footprint’. By turning waste into valuable products, Argent will be transforming a natural byproduct of the biodiesel process, into a technical-grade product suitable for the chemical industry.
The facility is due to start production of technical grade glycerine in December 2023. The refinery will include distillation and polishing to achieve a high purity product of 99.7%. There will also be dedicated tanks, pipelines and dedicated loading bays to avoid cross-contamination.
Eric Rietkerk, Argent Energy’s CEO says: ‘This refining facility will help add real value to what is a standard processing residue with limited applications. It will also help reduce carbon emissions in industrial processes where refined glycerine is an important component. Together with our up-coming five-fold increase of FAME production capacity, the construction of this glycerine refinery shows our strong belief that waste-based biodiesel will remain a crucial part of decarbonisation in transport and other industries for decades to come.’
