What is a methyl ester?
Methyl esters are a family of materials that are used as a base for producing other products. Methyl esters can be produced from a variety of raw materials such as fats and plant oils. Common resources for methyl ester manufacture are coconut, palm, canola and rapeseed oils, recycled vegetable oils, and beef tallow. Methyl esters are made through a chemical process called transesterification. The conversion of these oils to methyl esters involves the use of methanol as a raw material and a basic catalyst (potassium or sodium). Glycerin is a by-product of the conversion process. The methyl esters are washed to purify the product prior to sale. The methyl ester material produced from the oils mentioned above have a unique carbon chain distribution that is set by the oil and process used. Some methyl ester production methods have the ability to process oils with fatty acids (FFA) and convert the FFA to methyl esters, thus increasing the yield of oil fed to product production. When a more
