Tag Archives: Biodiesel
Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley have discovered that a long-abandoned process, once used to turn starch into explosives, can be used to efficiently produce diesel fuel from plant sources such as corn, sugar cane, grasses and other fast-growing plants or trees. The process of bacterial fermentation was discovered nearly 100 years ago by Chaim Weizmann, a chemist who later became the first president of Israel. It uses a bacterium, clostridium acetobutylicum, to ferment sugars and turn them into acetone, butanol and ethanol. This process was used by the British to manufacture cordite for explosives during the First World … Continue Reading
Seaweed would seem to an ideal source of biomass for making renewable fuels. Kelp has a high sugar content; it doesn’t need farmland or fresh water and large quantities can be sustainably harvested. Harvesting the kelp which is already growing along 3% of the world’s coastlines could potentially produce 60 billion gallons of ethanol. The problem with kelp is that its primary sugar, alginate, could not be broken down efficiently enough to produce biofuel on an industrial scale. Now, scientists from the Bio Architecture Laboratory in Berkeley, California, have genetically engineered a strain of E. coli bacteria capable of digesting … Continue Reading
A research team from the Joint BioEnergy Institute and biotech firm LS9 have modified E. coli bacteria to produce biodiesel from plant sugars. The biodiesel can be transported in diesel pipelines and burned in standard diesel engines. It releases far fewer greenhouse gases than conventional fossil diesel. E. coli was previously known to synthesize fatty acids, key ingredients in forming biofuels efficiently. But the bacterium normally manufactures only as many fatty acids as it needs to survive. The research team was able to manipulate an E. coli strain to create more fatty acids than the bacterium itself would need. When the … Continue Reading
American garbage-disposal giant, Waste Management, has partnered with InEnTec, an Oregon-based company, to begin commercializing a plasma-gasi fication process which converts garbage into energy. Plasma gasification technology has been in development and pilot testing for decades. Major pilot plants, capable of processing 1,000 tonnes or more of garbage daily, are under development in Florida, Louisiana and California. In theory, the process is simple. Torches pass an electric current through a gas (often ordinary air) in a chamber to create a superheated plasma with a temperature above 7,000 degrees Celsius. The plasma’s tremendous heat dissociates the molecular bonds of any garbage placed … Continue Reading
Researchers at the Lane Ag Center in Oklahoma have published a paper which recommends using waste watermelons as feedstock for biofuels. About 20% of watermelons are not sent to market because of blemishes or unusual shapes. The researchers concluded that watermelon juice would have to be concentrated 2.5 to 3 times if it was to be used as the sole biofuel feedstock, but watermelon juice could easily be used to dilute other feedstocks and provide a nitrogen supplement to them. Watermelons are only one of a range of unusual feedstocks, including various vegetable oils, whey and even beer, now being … Continue Reading
Researchers at the University of Nevada report that waste coffee grounds can provide a cheap abundant, and environmentally friendly source of biodiesel fuel. Spent coffee grounds contain between 11 and 20 percent oil by weight which is about as much as traditional biodiesel feedstocks such as rapeseed, palm and soybean oil. All of the oil can be converted to biodiesel (which smells like coffee). The residual solids can be converted to ethanol or used as compost. The scientists estimate that spent coffee grounds can potentially add 340 million gallons of biodiesel to the world’s fuel supply.
Scientists from Montana State University have discovered that a fungus found in a Patagonian rainforest could provide an alternative source of biofuel. The fungus, Gliocladium roseum, grows in the ulmo tree (Eucryphia cordifolia), a species native to the Patagonia region of Argentina and Chile. The researchers have found that it possesses the metabolic machinery to produce a wide variety of hydrocarbons virtually identical to the compounds in diesel obtained from crude oil. According to the lead researcher, Professor Gary Strobel, "Many fungi make ethanol, but none to date produce this kind of mixture of diesel hydrocarbons." The fungus produces the … Continue Reading
US company, Solazyme, has announced that it will be capable of mass producing millions of gallons of biodiesel derived from algae within 3 years. Solazyme is the first company to produce algae diesel that meets US standards but until now has not announced a timeline for mass production. According to Solazyme CEO, Jonathan Wolfson “The technology is moving a lot quicker than some people would expect." The key to Solazyme’s ability to bring its product to market quickly is its process of growing algae in the dark in large tanks by feeding it with biomass. The algae then eat the … Continue Reading
As the world recognises the inevitability of peak oil and the necessity to reduce carbon emissions, the possibilty of replacing fossil fuels with fuels produced from biomass – and the downside of doing so – is becoming an increasingly important issue. Already ethanol is starting to play a part as a transport fuel in the Americas – with Brazil and the United States accounting for about 80% of world fuel ethanol consumption. Similarly, biodiesel is becoming a significant fuel in Europe. But there are major questions about the value of using these "first generation" biofuels which are derived from feed … Continue Reading
Grain prices have soared in the past few years. Measured in US dollars, the price of corn, wheat and rice trebled and the price of soybeans doubled in the past three years. many press articles have blamed these price increases on the use of grains to make biofuels. But many other factors are much more important. Rice Terraces Bali (by Atelier Teee ex Flickr) Plant-based fuel production accounts for just 3% of world demand from grain and has increased by about 50% in the three years That is, the increase in biofuel production accounts for only 1% of the demand … Continue Reading
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Renewables News- Dysol Aiming to Print Storage with Solar CellsAustralia's Dyesol Limited has acquired an equity stake in Printed Power Pte Ltd, a spinoff company of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Printed Power is focussing on integrating dye solar cell technology with printed storage and power management systems to … Continue Reading → […]
- CSIRO Printer Makes 10m of Solar Cells a MinuteCSIRO researchers have built a gigantic printer that spits out solar cells at a rate of about ten metres a minute. The printer system uses existing technology to embed polymer solar cells (also known as organic solar cells) in thin … Continue Reading → […]
- New Aussie Technology to Clean Polluted WaterScientists from Deakin University, together with French colleagues, say that they have manufactured a lightweight and reusable material that can absorb up to 33 times its weight in a wide range of spilt oils, chemical solvents and dyes, while repelling … Continue Reading → […]
- Dysol Aiming to Print Storage with Solar Cells
