Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil or HVO, is commonly referred to as renewable fuel and is rapidly becoming one of the latest trends of the industry. HVO is produced via hydroprocessing of oils and fats, an alternative process to esterification to produce fuel from biomass. HVO can be produced from a wide variety of materials containing triglycerides and fatty acids. Within this range of materials, HVO is flexible in its feedstock requirements allowing the use of a wide range of low-quality waste and residue materials still leading to the production of hydrocarbon drop-in products. The key additional feedstock needed is hydrogen which today comes from a fossil source.

HVO type of biofuels can be produced by either investing in stand-alone facilities or by converting the existing oil refineries into HVO technology production or co-production facilities. Currently, 3.5 million tonnes per year of HVO production takes place globally expected to increase to 6-7 million tonnes per year by 2020. (Source: EAFO)

There is a large number of traditional oil refineries in the EU with refinery technology suitable for HVO conversion. Already Italian petrochemical giant ENI was the first in the world to convert its Venice Refinery to 0.3 million tonnes of HVO. ENI also just opened in Sicily the second most innovative bio-refinery in Europe. Launched in August 2019, the plant has a processing capacity of up to 750,000 tonnes a year and will be able to treat increasing quantities of used vegetable oil, animal fat, algae, and by-products to produce high-quality biofuels.

TECHNOILOGY manufactures plants for vegetable and non-vegetable feedstock Pre-treatment. We can remove all contaminants and undesirable content that could lead to the poisoning of catalysts or not suitable for the metallurgic materials of HVO plants.

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