THE NEW MONTETM PILOT PLANT
Plant Design
Lutros built the New MonteTM pilot plant in Chattanooga, TN, in 2023 to test and explore the concept’s suitability for commercial production.
Lutros designed the pilot plant to operate under conditions as close to full-scale commercial production as possible. The pilot plant used the New MonteTM reactive countercurrent technology, which operates under high pressure and high temperature without a centrifuge or adsorbent powder. Lutros designed the pilot plant to process feedstocks at 300-500 mL/minute with full automation.
Production Runs and Testing
Lutros’ New MonteTM pilot plant ran for hundreds of hours during fall 2023 and winter 2024 to test the system through multiple days of continuous production. During this time, Lutros ran trials for a wide variety of feedstocks. On average, yield was 98.8% in the pilot system.
Lutros also arranged laboratory testing for each sample feedstock by internal and external labs from samples drawn both by Lutros and by third parties. Lab testing of samples processed in the pilot plant showed that the New MonteTM Purification system reduced contaminants to below that of the standard specification for renewable fuels.
New MonteTM Purification system test results:
Please contact us to learn more about the New MonteTM Purification system and the pilot plant trials. See also the case study on Par Pacific's commercial-scale New MonteTM Purification system, which launched successful production in late summer 2025.