Filed under: Biodiesel, Emerging Technologies
Nano-revolution for biodiesel production
A team of investigators leaded by Victor Lin, from Iowa State university and program director for the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory, have developed a nanosphere-based catalyst claimed to be revolutionary for biodiesel production. Current methods use sodium methoxide – a toxic, corrosive and flammable catalyst – which must be removed using acid neutralization, water washes and separations. This catalyst is mostly lost during the process.
The new catalyst is claimed to convert efficiently vegetable oils or animal fats into fuel by using Lin's nanospheres with acidic catalysts to react with the free fatty acids and basic catalysts for the oils. The nanospheres are solid, which makes them easy to handle. They can also be recovered from the chemical mixture and recycled. And they can be used in existing biodiesel plants without major equipment changes. This technology is the result of four years of research.
The transition from lab testing to pilot-manufacturing will be financed by Catilin Inc. They expect to create enough nanospheres to reach a daily production of 300 gallons in 18 months.
[Source: Iowa State University via Nanowerk]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jack S. 7:58PM (7/04/2007)
to a layman that article might sound great but frankly I couldn't make any sense of it
"The technology allows efficient conversion of vegetable oils or animal fats into fuel by using Lin’s nanospheres with acidic catalysts to react with the free fatty acids and basic catalysts for the oils."
If the process still uses Acidic and Basic catalysts there's still the toxicity and corrosion problems as before. Still have to use methanol too (which is pretty darn toxic). Maybe what they really mean to say is the nanospheres replace the acid or basic catalyst? or maybe less of it?
Sounds good, but not exactly going to bring the production costs down since feedstock is by far the #1 cost.
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