The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office approved a patent for Biodiesel Industries Inc. The patent, #6,979,426, is for the innovative design of a biodiesel Modular Production Unit (MPU). The device features the production of biodiesel fuel through a MPU integrated into a single platform. This new design not only facilitates the installation and relocation, it also provides benefits such as collecting and processing a wide range of raw materials or feedstock.

Primarily the MPU consists of a mixing unit, a reactor unit, a separation unit, a distillation unit, and a filtering unit, which are all incorporated onto or into a self-contained platform or housing that can be easily relocated. The MPU is then combined with additional fixed or relocatable components to provide a biodiesel processing plant. Finally, the MPU contains a raw materials processing system. The method includes a roller barrel adapted to serve in recovery, transportation, and introduction of recycled oil feedstock into a biodiesel manufacturing process, and ideally, a hot box for filtering and heating the raw recycled oil feedstock.

Prior to this MPU, biodiesel production largely consisted of large, fixed-base plants that were only capable of processing a single type of feedstock. In addition, it required high-priced investments and extensive onsite manufacturing. The plants could only be constructed in very specific locations and it was very difficult to expand or relocate the biodiesel production plants. Now, the production equipment can be constructed at a central location and sent to a site for operation. The equipment can be transported worldwide by trucks, ships, or trains.

Once the MPU has been set up at the new site, the equipment is capable of processing a wide variety of feedstock. Prior equipment methods were only capable of processing a single type of feedstock. Common feedstock used for biodiesel production includes virgin, crude, and recycled vegetable oils and animal fats, such as soy, canola, mustard, rapeseed, fruit pits, cotton, palm, coconut, jatropha, neem, pongamia, hog fat, poultry fat, beef tallow, recycled fryer oil, and grease trap materials. The variety of feedstock processing allows the plant to select the most cost-effective feedstock per facility and change feedstock if necessary.

This patented technology has already been incorporated into four commercial facilities owned and operated by Biodiesel Industries. The plants are located in California, Colorado, Texas, and Australia. Instead of selling the equipment as stand-alone items, Biodiesel Industries decided to establish joint ventures with qualified partners to own and operate biodiesel production and distribution businesses in exclusive geographic territories. The patented MPU serves as an essential element for the efficient production of biodiesel on a localized basis.

Employees standing around the patented MPU at the Denton, Texas, facility. Photo courtesy of Biodiesel Industries

For more information concerning Biodiesel Industries or the patented MPU, please visit www.biodieselindustries.com.