Understanding correlations between raw materials inputs

Abstract

Prio Biocombustveis is a company that has a biodiesel plant in Porto de Aveiro. The production capacity of this plant is 113 880 ton/year. The plant has one lab to control the Biodiesel and Raw Materials quality. Every day Prio improves its process to assure the production of the best world-class biodiesel that any costumer can buy. Prio’s raw materials include several types of oils used in different percentages in the production process. Oils quality has the denomination of characteristic X, which varies with the different types of oils. Even in the same batch of the same oil it’s possible to observe quality oscillations. Oil’s neutralization is a dynamic process. The process recipe and operational parameters determine the final quality of the oil. All production shifts collect the operational parameters and analyze the quality in the lab for both intermediate and final oils. A diagram showing the main process operations is presented in Figure 1. The raw oil is heated to achieve the required process temperature and treated with acid and base using agitation. The produced soaps are separated from the Neutral Oil using centrifuges, which requires the control of several operational parameters. In neutralization process the main reaction is: Oil Mix (Raw Oil) + Base --> Neutral Oil + Soaps. The aim of this challenge is to understand correlations between raw materials inputs (in particular characteristic X) that define the recipe and highly influence the operational parameters that allow obtaining a high quality neutral oil (outputs).