DRT commissions its new tall-oil biorefinery in Vielle-Saint-Girons

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DRT (Dérivés Résiniques et Terpéniques) announced on 14th September, the commissioning of its new tall-oil biorefinery on its site of Vielle-Saint-Girons (France). DRT is headquartered in Southwestern France (Landes region) and it has 4 production sites in France, 1 in China and 3 in India. The company is specialized in the valorization of rosin and turpentine extracted from pine resin and, to meet the growing demand of the international markets, has decided to increase its production capacities thanks to a new tall-oil fractionation technology.

Figure 1. Aerial shot of the DRT site in Vielle-Saint-Girons (extracted from DRT webpage)

Tall-oil is a liquid obtained as a by-product of the Kraft process of wood pulp manufacture when pulping mainly coniferous trees. Normally, crude tall-oil contains resin acids, fatty acids and unsaponifiable substances (sterols and other alkyl hydrocarbon derivatives). The crude tall oil does not have a great commercial value, however, when it is processed properly, it can generate different chemical specialties with high added value. The approach of DRT is based on the valorization of co-products deriving from the paper industry and this new unit aims to cover the future needs of the adhesive, coating, road marking, chewing-gum and synthetic rubber industries. Initiated in 2014, the construction works of the 100,000 ton/y plant ended in September 2015. The commissioning has allowed to validate the quality of the production.

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