GEA achieves further milestones with Pre2Fuel

Excellent performance in Bremfield's pretreatment plant in Malaysia

GEA is setting new standards in the pretreatment of challenging feedstocks for biofuel production with its Pre2Fuel process. At Bremfield Sdn Bhd biodiesel plant in Klang, Malaysia, which processes used cooking oil (UCO) and palm oil mill effluent (POME) into biofuel, Pre2Fuel has now enabled further technological and economic milestones to be achieved. Pre2Fuel consistently produces pretreated raw materials of a consistently high quality, even exceeding specifications, and does so without the use of bleaching earth. At the same time, the plant demonstrates an excellent yield with reduced overall OPEX.

Excellent parameters, maximum yield, and reduced operating costs

The current operating data from the customer's plant confirms the high performance of the Pre2Fuel process in industrial use. GEA Pre2Fuel easily meets the required specifications for residual phosphorus and metal content of 3 ppm and 10 ppm respectively, and even exceeds them: in the best case measured, by 66% for phosphorus and as much as 91% for metals. This is achieved entirely without the use of bleaching earth. In addition to the excellent product quality, the plant impresses with a high product yield of 99.6 percent.

The requirements of the pretreatment process are therefore not only reliably met, but also significantly exceeded. These optimal conditions create the ideal foundation for stable, catalyst-friendly and cost-efficient further processing in downstream hydrogenation processes.

Switching to Pre2Fuel a game changer for operations

Loh Chee Fei, Executive Vice President - Technical, Mewah-Oils / Bremfield Sdn Bhd explains: "Before implementing Pre2Fuel, we used a conventional pretreatment process that was significantly more complex in terms of operating costs, material usage, and handling. Switching to GEA's Pre2Fuel process was a real game changer for our plant. Today, we achieve significantly better product quality with higher yields and reduced operating costs. At the same time, we have become much more resource-efficient and have reduced our environmental impact considerably, particularly by eliminating the need for bleaching earth and the associated infrastructure altogether.”

Complete elimination of bleaching earth – process simplification with far-reaching impact

A key milestone of the Pre2Fuel process is the total removal of bleaching earth from the processing of raw materials. Unlike conventional processes, which typically rely on bleaching earth to remove metals, phosphorus and other impurities, Pre2Fuel achieves the required product specifications without using this resource.

This removes a complex, costly process step from the production line. Not only is bleaching earth energy- and material-intensive to produce, it also requires complex handling, storage and disposal after use. Eliminating it also improves working conditions for operating personnel: no fine dust is produced, contamination risks are reduced, and handling in the plant becomes safer and easier.

Ecologically speaking, this also has advantages: Upstream emissions from the production, transport and disposal of bleaching earth are eliminated and the plant operator's scope 3 emissions are measurably reduced. At the same time, operating costs are reduced.

GEA Pre2Fuel was awarded the company-wide 'Add Better' eco-label at the beginning of 2025 in recognition of these resource savings. This label recognizes solutions that demonstrably contribute to greater resource efficiency and environmental compatibility. In addition, Add Better Consulting, validated by one of the world’s leading testing service providers TÜV Rheinland, supports customers in the holistic optimization and decarbonization of their production processes.

These results demonstrate the industrial maturity and scalability of the Pre2Fuel process for processing challenging raw materials such as UCO and POME. Combining the achievement of product specification targets with the complete elimination of bleaching earth, maximized yield and reduced operating costs and CO₂ emissions represents a significant advance in the economic production of biofuels.