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