The project IRODDI (Innovative Refining process for valorization of vegetable Oil Deodorizer DIstillates), funded by BBI JU, has successfully concluded by demonstrating that waste (bio)materials such as by-products of the refining industry of vegetable oils and fats (technically known as deodorizer distillates) are a profitable resource to obtain high-value products, beyond energy uses for biofuel production.
In this sense, IRODDI represents an example of direct application of how the bioeconomy and circularity have a place in the industrial environment, providing benefits to both today's industries and society. The technologies developed in the project have successfully led to the integral transformation of low-value resources into chemical products of direct commercial application. Specifically, the following processes have been successfully developed:
• In combination with bio-based ionic liquids, deodorising distillates have become key ingredients for readily biodegradable detergents that exhibit higher efficacy and lower toxicity than their oil-based counterparts. The technologies developed for the production of these compounds are green, as they generate only water as a residue in the production process.
• Using highly selective, non-wasteful enzymatic technologies, deodorising distillates have been converted into ingredients for biodegradable biolubricants that pollute much less than those currently used commercially.
• New green (non-wasteful) processes have been developed to extract high-value molecules (squalene) present in deodorising distillates and are successfully applied in sectors such as cosmetics, resulting in very high-quality products.
Technologies developed have proved to be competitive in comparison with commercial alternatives in the market.
