Glycerin Distillation

What is Glycerin Distillation?

Glycerin Distillation is a vacuum separation process that purifies crude glycerin from biodiesel plants or oil splitting processes for fatty acid production into high-purity pharmaceutical grade glycerin.

Air Liquide Engineering & Technologies leverages decades of separation expertise to separate glycerin from organic components and salts at temperatures up to 180°C (175°C standard).

Key Performances and Data

• Exceptional Purity: Yields a pharmaceutical-grade main product exceeding 99.7% purity .
• Flexible Capacities: Plants are scaled to process between 10 tpd and 600 tpd .
• Cost-Efficient Operation: Achieves an impressively low OPEX
• Global Track Record: Highly mature technology backed by more than 45 operational references worldwide

Maximized yields and polishing

Residues from the column bottom are directed to a thin film evaporator to maximize glycerin recovery, while a decanter separates residual salts to minimize waste. The final product is polished via bleaching — adsorption through fixed beds of activated carbon — ensuring light impurities are channeled strictly into the technical grade co-product (85-90% purity).