At a recent Green Innovation Day gathering in the Houston, Texas area, Emerson’s Ryan Thompson and Juan Najera presented on advancing the loading and unloading of green diesel. A Green Diesel article in ScienceDirect defines it as:
…one of alternative energy products, is a second generation of biofuel, which has a similar molecular structure as petroleum diesel but provides better diesel properties. The green diesel has been produced by a hydrotreating of triglycerides in vegetable oils with hydrogen.
Unlike biodiesel made from a transesterification process, green diesel is made with a hydroprocessing process and yields a similar chemical structure to diesel refined from crude oil.
Here are the elements and associated challenges found in a typical green diesel plant.
Ryan and Juan’s presentation focused on the truck and rail loading area in the logistics operations. They described how the DL8000 Preset Batch Controller controls the loading and unloading of hydrocarbon liquids in or out of transporting vessels such as tanker trucks, rail cars, ships, storage tanks, and pipelines. The DL8000 is capable of performing all blending, measurement, control, and monitoring needed to provide highly productive and rapid operations.
The DL8000 is part of an optimized loading skid with a Micro Motion Coriolis mass flow meter, a control valve, and a grounding/overspill protection system that’s fully integrated and tested at the factory.
These optimized skids feed the measurements collected to TerminalManager terminal management system software.
It is a scalable, built-for-purpose solution that drives greater intra-terminal and inter-terminal efficiencies by automating material transfers at any type of tank storage facility, from small to large and manned to unmanned.
Refineries that produce conventional and green diesel have a broad range of feedstocks requiring unloading. These include crude oil, soybean oil, corn oil, used cooking oil, inedible tallow, and white grease. While API gross and net volume calculations are used in crude oil unloading activities, the TerminalManager software can perform the gross and net volume calculations for the green diesel feedstocks.
Once refined, the hydrocarbon-based and green diesel can apply the API gross & net volume calculations.
This integrated loading and unloading approach provides multiple validations and checks to ensure safe operations, and the compact skid design enables scalability for multiple arms and greater site efficiency.
Visit the Terminals & Logistics section on Emerson.com for more on the technologies and solutions to connect data and activities in the field directly to decision-makers at the enterprise level, adding agility and visibility to site operations while increasing inventory turnover and reducing safety risk. Also, visit the Sustainability section on Emerson.com to explore other solutions to help you achieve operational excellence and environmental sustainability targets.
