One major obstacle to achieving that goal is figuring how to efficiently convert the abundant stocks of waste vegetable oil (oil used after cooking French fries, for example) into biodiesel fuel. Current techniques take time, are costly and are inefficient. Worse, the conversion requires the toxic chemicals sulfuric acid and either potassium hydroxide or sodium hydroxide.

Waste not, want not: Aaron Socha, left, and Jason Sello devised a way to convert waste vegetable oil to biodiesel in a single reaction vessel, using environmentally friendly catalysts. (Credit: Mike Cohea/Brown University)

That’s where Brown University chemist Jason Sello and postdoctoral researcher Aaron Socha come in. They write in the journal Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry that they were able to convert waste vegetable oil to biodiesel in a single reaction vessel using environmentally friendly catalysts. Their process is also six times faster than current methods for converting waste vegetable oil to biodiesel, so it consumes less energy.

“We wanted to develop an environmentally benign and technically simple way to convert waste vegetable oil into biodiesel,” said Sello, assistant professor of chemistry. “The production of energy at the expense of the environment is untenable and should be avoided at all costs.”

Waste vegetable oil is made up of triacylglycerols, free fatty acids, and water. The conventional way to convert waste vegetable oil into biodiesel requires two separate reactions. The first reaction turns the free fatty acids into biodiesel, but that conversion requires sulfuric acid. The second reaction converts the triacylglycerols into biodiesel, but that conversion requires sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide. Sodium hydroxide/potassium hydroxide and sulfuric acid are not compatible with each other, so the reactions must be carried out in separate vessels. That makes the process less efficient.

To find a better way, Sello and Socha went looking for catalysts that would be cheap, chemically stable and of limited toxicity. They settled on the metals bismuth triflate and scandium triflate, commonly used as catalysts in preparative organic chemistry. In addition, they performed the reactions using a microwave reactor instead of a conventional thermal heater. What they found was the new catalysts converted waste vegetable oil into biodiesel in about 20 minutes in the microwave reactor, whereas current reactions without catalysts using a conventional heater take two hours. While their microwave method needs a higher temperature to pull off the biodiesel conversion — 150 degrees Celsius versus 60 degrees Celsius under current methods — it uses less energy overall because the reaction time is much shorter.

The chemists also were able to perform the conversion in one reaction vessel, since the catalysts can promote both the reaction that converts free fatty acids into biodiesel and the reaction in which triacylgycerols are converted to biodiesel.

The team also reports that the catalysts in the free fatty acid conversion, which is the more challenging of the two reactions, could be recycled up to five times, while maintaining the capacity to promote a 97 percent reaction yield. The fact the catalysts can be recycled lowers their cost and environmental impact, the researchers said.

“While we have not yet proven the viability of our approach on an industrial scale,” Sello said, “we have identified very promising catalysts and reaction conditions that could, in principle, be used for large-scale conversion of waste vegetable oil into biodiesel in an enviornmentally sensitive manner.”

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation through a grant to Sello and an American Competitiveness in Chemistry award to Socha. Brown also supported the work through a R.B. Salomon award to Sello.

In a separate yet related paper, a team led by Brown chemistry professor Paul Williard has created a new technique to chart the progress of a reaction in which virgin oils are converted into biodiesel fuel.

The technique, called DOSY (for diffusion-ordered nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy), observes virgin oil molecules as they shrink in size and move faster in solution during the reaction. The reaction is complete when all of the molecules have been converted into smaller components known as fatty acid esters. These fatty acid esters are used as biodiesel fuel.

The results are published in the journal Energy & Fuels. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation. Contributing authors include Sello, Socha, Brown graduate students Gerald Kagan and Weibin Li, and lab technician Russell Hopson.

Brown University (2010, October 8). Chemists simplify biodiesel conversion. ScienceDaily http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2010/10/101007145459.htm

The Original Post is Located Here: Chemists Simplify Biodiesel Conversion

All three options can be used with vegetable oils, animal fat or both (it doesn’t matter if you use fresh or used oils):

• You can use the oil as it is
• You can mix the oil with another chemical supplement like kerosene, or gasoline or petroleum etc.
• You can convert the oil to biodiesel

Using the oil as it is can be clean and effective. Not to mention cheap also. But you have to make modifications to the diesel engine so that it is optimized for vegetable oil. You can find pre-modified diesel engines where you can use petro diesel, biodiesel and pure vegetable oil in any combination. There are engines with separate fuel tanks and a switch, you fill one tank with vegetable oil and the other tank with original petroleum diesel. Then you just turn on the engine using the tank with the original petroleum diesel and after a while you switch to the tank with the vegetable oil.

Mixing the oil with other supplements is your second option. Because vegetable oil is thick you mix it with a different type of fuel to make it thinner so that it flows easily into the combustion chamber of your diesel engine. Remember that using petroleum or kerosene to mix the vegetable oil, is not a clean option though. You can make various mixes (for example 20% vegetable oil and 80% of another diesel fuel). Some claim that if you use such a mix you have to preheat the engine, others just start the engine and go without preheating.

Your final option (and by far the best, in my opinion) is to convert the vegetable oil into biodiesel. Because biodiesel works in any diesel engine without the need to make any conversion or modifications to the fuel system or the engine itself. Just fill and go. Biodiesel is a much safer, clean, ready to use fuel that’s well tested. This option unlike the other two is backed by thousands of short-term and long-term research and tests by scientists around the world.

The Original Post is Located Here: How to Make Biodiesel: the Three Choices of Using Biofuel

The Difference Between Biofuel and Fossil Fuel
The critical difference between biofuel and traditional fossil fuel is the number of years it takes to form. Biofuel is derived from recently dead biological or organic material. Traditional fossil fuel comes from long dead (read: millions of years old) biological organisms. For this reason, biofuel is considered a renewable resource because it can be replenished in a short period of time. Fossil fuel is classified as a non-renewable resource because its reserves are being depleted much faster than it takes to form new reserves.

While biofuel and fossil fuel are carbon-based properties (they both derive from biological matter) biofuel is considered carbon neutral because the energy is derived from plants, which remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Whereas, fossil fuels released carbon dioxide, which has been stored beneath the earth surface for millions of years, into the air. Carbon dioxide emissions are the number one pollutant.

Biofuel comes from a variety of feedstock sources, of which the more common ones are corn, sugar cane, palm, wheat, algae, and jatropha. From these feedstock sources, two popular fuels are produced for transportation and machineries. They are biodiesel and bioethanol. Broken down further, biodiesel is derived from plant oils; bioethanol is derived from fermented starch or sugar crops.

How Are Biofulels Used?
Biofuels can be used in a pure (denoted as B100) or a blended form (denoted as a percentage). Biofuel is the most common fuel used in Europe because European car manufacturers outfit their cars with diesel engines. For most unmodified diesel engines, advocates say blends of up to 20% (B20) are deemed safe. Higher concentrations require modifications to the diesel engine.

Bioethanol is suggested as a substitute for gasoline in vehicles. However, users have to be careful in choosing the proper blend of ethanol. Generally, a 10% blend of ethanol (E10) may be safe to be used in newer cars. Lower concentrations have been used in some older engines without having adverse effects on vehicle fuel lines, but users should consult their car manufacturers to find out if bioethanol is safe for their engines. In some cases, conversions can void the manufacturer warranty.

Proponents Say
Advocates suggest businesses, especially those in the transportation industry will benefit from using biofuels on two fronts: (1) When biofuel prices are more stable than oil prices, companies are in a better position to plan and budget fuel expenditures for the year. (2) Cleaner vehicular emissions may save transportation companies maintenance costs, while helping them meet new government mandated environmental standards.

Opponents Say
Opponents question how governments establish standards, regulations, and mandates and suggest that the underlying motivation for setting certain standards and enforcing mandates is political.

In other words, opponents contend that politicians are showing preferential treatment to their constituents and lobbyists. The end result is that governments, not the economy, are creating winners and losers. If your company or industry falls on the out of political favor side, you may wind up paying higher taxes or incurring higher costs to meet those politically inspired mandates

Car Manufacturer Status
Car manufactures today are being forced to produce more vehicles that are biofuel ready. In addition to using cheaper fuel, both manufacturers and buyers will be given government incentives (in the form of tax credits) to embrace renewable and alternative energy. Studies also suggest that certain types of biofuel (e.g., biodiesel) can make engines last longer when users maintain their cars by using the right biofuel blend.

The Food vs. Fuel Debate
Biofuel does have an underside and has been the subject of a current debate on food vs. fuel. Since biofuel uses plants that are also used in food supply (corn, maize, wheat, sugar cane, and coconut), this raises the question of whether it is appropriate to use food crops to create alternative fuel instead of filling world food demand. The debate has been further intensified as the world experienced what was deemed as a food crisis in 2007. Critics contend that using agricultural land to produce crops to be used in biofuel production led to this crisis.

These issues must be ironed out by policymakers and regulatory bodies to ensure a workable balance between access to energy and all other necessities.

Proponents and opponents come together around environmental and health benefits of going green. Thus the conversion to more biofuels is probably inevitable. Some are very concerned with how that is executed, since the timing of the changes is not clear. Also total direct and indirect costs and what groups benefit and which groups suffer are major concerns. With Congressional leadership dedicated to accelerating greener energy in a way that benefits their constituents and lobbyists (For example, why do tax deductions for trial attorneys help the general public?), there will definitely be winners and losers.

What the biofuels discussion is pointing to is the urgency to begin planning NOW for this inevitability to help protect industries and consumers from rising costs from energy, regulations and taxes.

The Original Post is Located Here: Biofuel for Everyone: Will It Solve the Energy Crisis?

Algae + CO2 = Biofuel

As the term suggests, bio-fuels are fuels that are formed when biological matter, primarily plants, decomposes. Bio-fuels can exist in all the three states of matter: solid, liquid, and gas.

Bio-fuels are different from fossil fuels in the following ways:

• Fossil fuels take millions of years to form whereas bio-fuels can be made extremely quickly, in a matter of days.
• Fossil fuels generate huge amounts of pollution. Bio-fuels are comparatively cleaner.
• Bio-fuels are renewable sources of energy unlike fossil fuels.

Bio-fuels have been categorized into four types: first generation, second generation, third generation, and fourth generation.

The first generation biofuels are derived from vegetable fats, starch, and sugar, which are in turn derived from food crops. The first generation fuels are also derived from animal fats. Biogas, biodiesel, and vegetable oil are some examples of this type of biofuel.

The second generation of biofuels is mainly derived from waste biomass, making it a more balanced option compared to the first-generation biofuels. Different kinds of alcohols and diesel generated from wood fall into the category of second generation biofuels.

The third generation comprises biofuels derived from algae. Algae can be farmed on large scales to create these biofuels, which are extremely environmentally friendly as they can easily decompose into the soil without harming it.

The biofuels in the fourth generation are derived by a method in which micro-organisms are raised to work with carbon dioxide to generate fuel.

Advantages of biofuels

• Biofuels lessen the burden on gradually-vanishing fossil fuels.
• Biofuels are environmentally friendly. They help reduce carbon emissions into the atmosphere.
• Biofuels, especially, biodiesel prove to be very cost-effective for consumers.

Disadvantages of biofuels
Biofuels are not bereft of criticism. Though beneficial for the environment, biofuels have their disadvantages, paradoxically in the environmental purview. Biofuels have received criticism for many reasons, a couple of which are stated below:

• Economists have long debated on the usefulness of first generation biofuels when compared to the lack of food they cause. Generating fuel from food crops makes food crops unworthy of human consumption. Some people believe that being a higher priority than fuel, food should not be farmed for making fuels but for human consumption.
• Making biofuels require acres of farming land, thus encroaching upon the natural habitat of plants and animals.

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The Original Post is Located Here: Biofuels – What are they and are they any good?

Biodiesel from Plant Material

With the ever increasing cost of gasoline, many vehicles now run on the much more economical diesel fuel. However, with the growing push toward more environmentally friendly fuels for vehicles, are their any viable alternatives for diesel vehicle owners other than diesel fuel? Indeed there is and Biodiesel is making a big splash in the fuel industry.

Biodiesel is the name coined for the clean burning alternative fuel, produced from domestic, renewable resourcessuch as vegetable oils and is the only alternative fuel that can potentially be used directly in any existing, unmodified diesel engine. Because of its close similarity to diesel fuel, biodiesel can also be blended at any level with petroleum diesel to create a Biodiesel blend. Biodiesel is simple to use, biodegradable, nontoxic, and essentially free of sulfur and aromatics.

Biodiesel fuel is produced from any fat or oil through a refining process called trans-esterification. This process is a reaction of the oil with an alcohol to remove the glycerin, which is a by-product of biodiesel production.

Fuel-grade Biodiesel as an alternative fuel must be produced to strict industry specifications in order to ensure proper engine performance. Biodiesel is the only alternative fuel to have fully completed the health effects testing requirements of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments.

Biodiesel fuel that meets the industry specifications for an alternative fuel is legally registered with the Environmental Protection Agency as a legal motor fuel for sale and distribution. “Biodiesel” is standardized as mono-alkyl ester and other kinds of diesel-grade fuels of biological origin are not included. Raw vegetable oil cannot meet Biodiesel fuel specifications, it is not registered with the EPA, and it is not a legal motor fuel.

Biodiesel is the only alternative fuel to have fully completed the health effects testing requirements of the Clean Air Act. The use of Biodiesel in a conventional diesel engine results in substantial reduction of unburned hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, and particulate matter compared to emissions from diesel fuel. Plus the exhaust emissions of sulfur oxides and sulfates (major components of acid rain) from Biodiesel are essentially eliminated in comparison to regular diesel fuel.

Of the major exhaust pollutants, both unburned hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides are ozone or smog forming precursors and the use of Biodiesel as an alternative fuel results in a substantial reduction of unburned hydrocarbons. Emissions of nitrogen oxides are either slightly reduced or slightly increased depending on the duty cycle of the engine and testing methods used.

The use of Biodiesel fuel as an alternative to petroleum based fuel is really a step in the right direction when it comes to both environmental as well as economic concerns. It is safer, burns cleaner, and is easy to make.
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The Original Post is Located Here: Biodiesel – the Diesel Fuel Alternative