Case Studies

Customer: BIOX Corporation

Project: Modular Biodiesel Plant

Capacity: 67 million liters per year

Project Description:

BIOX Corp, a renewable energy company located in Oakville, Ontario, contacted Zeton in the summer of 2004 to start engineering for a modular commercial biodiesel plant to be located in Hamilton, ON.

A key advantage of the BIOX process is that it can produce biodiesel from a variety of different feedstocks ranging from pure seed oils to animal fats to recovered vegetable oils. This feedstock flexibility was an important design consideration for the BIOX and Zeton project teams.

Working in close cooperation with AMEC, who were responsible for all site and outside battery limits (OSBL) scope of work, the Zeton team led by Chris Brown and Gary Chu completed Phase I — Basic Engineering on a fast track schedule in late 2004, with Phase II — Detailed Design, Procurement, Fabrication and Factory Testing commencing before the end of the same year.

The finished plant modules were shipped in stages to site between Q4 2005 and Q1 2006, for an overall project schedule of approx. 18 months. Zeton's project team then supported BIOX during Phase III — Shipping, Installation and Start Up support.

Altogether, the plant as originally conceived consisted of 21 process modules, including feed, reaction, separation and product purification steps. Due to the size of the project, and projects already underway at Zeton's facility at the time, the BIOX plant was fabricated in an neighboring facility in Burlington, ON. While this presented an additional challenge for the project team, the result was a successful project, demonstrating the benefit of Zeton's flexible project approach, and providing proof of our ability to handling multiple, concurrent modular plant projects.

In April 2007, BIOX announced it had completed commissioning of its first commercial-scale biodiesel production facility in Hamilton, Ontario. The 67 million litre annual nameplate capacity plant is one of the largest continuous flow biodiesel production facilities currently operating in the world.

Customer Quote: "Zeton was extremely efficient with project execution, providing a 'One Stop Shop' for engineering, procurement and assembly. Without such efficiencies our entry into the Biodiesel market would have taken much longer." Neil Vanknotsenburg, Vice President of Projects, BIOX Corp.