In de provincie Vojvodina in het noorden van Servië vindt grootschalige teelt van zonnebloemen plaats. In een aantal grote fabrieken wordt olie gewonnen uit de zonnebloempitten. Bij dit proces blijven enorme hoeveelheden 'schoon' afval over, die worden gestort en deels verbrand voor de productie van processtroom. Bio Olie Nederland levert installaties waarmee dit afval kan worden omgezet in een bruikbare brandstof. Deze brandstof kan worden gebruikt in de eigen fabriek, maar kan ook worden opgeslagen en vervoerd naar andere afnemers. De Servische bedrijven hebben belangstelling voor deze installaties. Een studie moet uitwijzen of het haalbaar is om deze installaties te installeren.

De studie is afgerond op 21-04-2005.

Summary

Sunflower husk is commonly used in sunflower cooking oil factories as a valuable energy source. Although combustion of large quantities of sunflower husk has been conducted in Serbian sunflower factories from the 1960s in order to produce heat for production process, the process is not controlled well resulting in large energy losses due to the energy production when it is not really needed with very high air emissions. These problems are coming from the nature of process itself and a suitable solution has not been identified up till now. Bio Oil Nederland at present can propose a suitable solution for this process, putting together the extensive experience in pyrolysis technology and thorough understanding of the problem with which these factories are faced in their production utilities.
This study was conducted together with Vital Company from Vrbas and Dijamant Company from Zrenjanin. These two factories are the largest sunflower oil producers in Serbia and Montenegro.
Vital Oil Company was founded in 1855. It primarily deals with sunflower seeds and products derived from its crushing and refining. Until the 1990s it was the biggest cooking oil producer in former Yugoslavia. It is situated in Vrbas, 130 km north of Beograd in Vojvodina, the biggest agricultural area in Serbia. Crushing capacity of Vital is 150,000 tons of sunflower seeds per year. It has storage (silo) capacity of 50,000 tons. At “raw” side they have crushing and extraction installation from which they produce raw oil and cattle food. Cattle food presents approximately 40 - 45 percent of primary mass and it is sold to local farmers and exported to western Europe (around 20,000 tons per year is exported and rest is sold at the domestic market). Cattle food has usually 33 percent of proteins and it is mixed with sunflower husk. After crushing and extraction there is refinery with production lines for margarines, vegetable fats and mayonnaise. As they say, most of the profit that they make comes from margarines and mayonnaise. For this production year, they bought 93,000 tons of sunflower seeds. They plan to make 25,000 tons of cooking oil and 27 – 28,000 tons of margarines, mayonnaise and vegetable fats from it.
The Oil Industry Dijamant is the largest producer of vegetable oils and margarines in Balkan. It was founded in 1938 as Beograd Oil Company. It is situated in Zrenjanin, 80 km north east of Belgrade. Quality and quantity of its products are well known domestically and abroad. Dijamant can daily produce and process: 600 tons of sunflower seed, 400 tons of refined oil, 250 tons of edible oil, 100 tons of vegetable fats, 65 tons of margarine, 15 tons of mayonnaise, etc. The production of Dijamant is connected with improvement and development of its own raw material base. Constant supply with raw materials is achieved thanks to good cooperation with the agricultural producers.  For production season 2004/05 they procured 150,000 tons of sunflower seed. Storage capacity of their silos is 70,000 tons of sunflower seed.

Pyrolysis Technology
Fast pyrolysis is a fairly old technology which dates back to the 1950s. It was developed to liberate a liquid fraction from tar sand and bituminous coal. At that time both the thermal conversion reactors were developed together with proper liquid collection systems. Fast pyrolysis was rediscovered in the 1980s as a technique to transfer biomass in liquid while utilizing the same techniques as were applied for coal liquefaction. The advantage is storability, high energy content per volume in comparison with biomass (1 ton of biomass is approximately 5 m3 and 1 ton of bio-oil is approximately 0.8 m3), transportability and burnable in boilers with minor adjustments with ash-free combustion property.
Today’s fast pyrolysis technology which is shown on Figure 8 embodies tested design from the 1950s together with modern materials, control system and energy integration techniques. Biomass for fast pyrolisis technology should be well grinded and dried to avoid that bio-oil has too high water content.
the advantage of a biomass liquefaction process is that it allows conversion of an ill defined granular material like biomass into well defined liquid energy carrier. Since bio-oil is obtained by dry distillation process, the liquid is virtually free of ash. It can be stored, pumped and atomized prior to any combustion process. For example, when wood is liquefied by the fast pyrolysis process, it results in 70wt percent bio-oil, 20wt percent char and 10wt percent fuel gas. For the fast pyrolisis process any external heat is not needed.