This section will illustrate two feedstock examples that are abundant in the South East Asian region: crude palm oil and crude coconut oil. Table 11.3 shows the typical constituents of crude palm oil. A new processing configuration using the ET Process® is proposed in Fig. 11.3. There is no need to use RBD (refined, bleached, deodorized) palm oil for the ET Process®. Degummed, crude palm oil can be directly used as the feedstock. The product leaving the ET Process® consists of pure glycerol and pure palm-based biodiesel. Palm-based biodiesel can be used as a summer biodiesel. Phytochemicals, like tocopherols and carotenes, can be separated from biodiesel, for instance, via short-path distillation. Phytochemicals can be sent downstream to increase their concentration or be further separated. Biodiesel distillate, which is a colourless product, can be separated into two major products: methyl palmitate (C16:0) and methyl oleate (C18:1). The latter can be used as winter biodiesel. The former can be used as a raw material for the surfactant industry or be further purified to obtain pure methyl palmitate, which can be reacted with the pure glycerol prod­uct to produce pure glycerol monopalmitate. Fatty acid methyl myristate can be lumped into the winter biodiesel product or sold independently.

Glycerol monopalmitate is a monoglyceride widely used in food, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. It can be applied as a lubricant in implant delivery devices, such as intraocular lens inserters (Vanderbilt and Tsou 2005), and as stabilizers and emulsi­fiers in suppositories (Lee 2007). It is used as a preservative in bread and potato starch products because of its ability to complex with amylase (Tufvesson et al. 2001;

Table 11.4 Typical composition of crude coconut oil (Hui 1996)

Twillman and White 1988). Glycerol monopalmitate has also been found to inhibit P-glycoprotein activity, which is a key mechanism in multidrug resistance in tumour cells (Konishi et al. 2004). It (1-monopalmitin) was found to attenuate multi-drug resistance protein 2, which could improve oral drug delivery, as well (Jia and Wasan 2008). In most pharmaceutical applications, pure monoglycerides are highly desired. The monoglyceride products derived from esters of the ET Process® can be obtained with a higher than 99.5 wt% purity. These can also have wide applications as raw materials for bio-based polymers.

Compared to the current chemical process, no refinement of feedstock is involved. There can be big savings when oil feedstock having high FFA content is used. Only a degumming step is required for crude palm oil in the ET Process®. Furthermore, pure glycerol is produced. After undergoing decolorization and puri­fication, technical grade or pharmaceutical grade glycerol is produced in a simple way. The phytochemical co-products are important to boost profits and it is a feature unique only to the enzymatic process. This is another reason why it is incomparable to the chemical approach.

Table 11.4 displays the typical constituents of crude coconut oil. The fatty acid profile is very different from that of palm oil. Figure 11.4 shows the possible pro­duction configuration using the ET Process®.

Degummed, crude coconut oil is first forwarded to the ET Process®, and then the products are separated into a series of units. A mixture of methyl stearate (C18:0) and oleate (C18:1) can be used as winter biodiesel. A mixture of C14 and C16 esters can be used to manufacture methyl ester sulfonates (MESs). The C12 ester can be used as surfactant materials for fatty alcohol production. The C8 and C10 esters can be separated into pure products and further converted to high value-added products widely used in food, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and general industries. These two types of monoglycerides have either antibacterial or antimicrobial properties. In this case, biodiesel is treated as a by-product.