Chem321:Biodiesel

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This is the 2013 paper by Abby Langdon.

As we know fossil fuels are diminishing and creating problems for the atmosphere, but how can we survive in today’s time without a vehicle to get to work, or school, grocery store, etc? The answer is alternative fuels! One in particular is biodiesel. Biodiesel is an alternative fuel that replaces diesel and can be run in any diesel engine.

According to the U.S department of energy, “Biodiesel is a domestically produced, renewable fuel that can be manufactured from vegetable oils, animal fats, or recycled restaurant grease. It is a cleaner-burning replacement for petroleum diesel fuel. It is nontoxic and biodegradable.” Biodiesel is made from vegetable oils, yellow grease, and tallow. To create biodiesel the oils are converted to long-chain mono alkyl esters, also called fatty acid methyl esters. The process that the oils must go through is called transesterification. Transesterification happens when a large amount of oil or fat reacts with a small amount of short-chain alcohol (10:1 respectively), typically methanol, with a catalyst, typically sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide. The end of this process results in a large amount of biodiesel and a small amount of glycerin (10:1 respectively).

The process of creating biodiesel replaces oil drilling for petroleum. Oil drilling is a dirty process for both the environment and the people it employs. Oil drills are run by large motors that produce emissions that are part of the reason why our ozone layer is depleting. Most oil drills are located a distance away from places that will by receiving the oil, so transporting the oil to other nations is also very dirty for the environment because of ships and big rigs that produce emissions. Transporting oil and petroleum diesel is far more dangerous because it has a much lower flashpoint. The flashpoint for biodiesel is higher than 150°C, compared with about 52°C for petroleum diesel. Biodiesel is safe to handle store and transport, it is also biodegradable. If oil is spilled it causes a lot of harm on the environment. Oil spills have the potential to wipe out entire ecosystems both aquatic and land dwelling systems. Biodiesel is nontoxic and causes far less damage than petroleum diesel if spilled or released to the environment. Biodiesel can be made almost anywhere there is a restaurant that discards of oil or where vegetables and plants that produce oil can me planted. Producing biodiesel results in very little to no emissions and provides a place to discard all of the old cooking oil from the millions of restaurants in the world. Although burning biodiesel its self can produce more particulate matter than petroleum diesel. The use of petroleum of course is much simpler and it comes out of the earth pretty much ready to use. Petroleum prices are increasing not because it is a difficult process to obtain the fuel, but because it is relatively difficult to transport the fuel. Biodiesel on the other hand is a little more time consuming, but much less costly, it produces 3.2 times the amount of energy it uses to make it. Petroleum has the advantage of already having a huge market that provides a large income to the few countries that are major oil producers.

A downfall to biodiesel right now is that it still needs to be mixed with petroleum diesel. Currently most cars are not suitable to run off 100% biodiesel. Biodiesel is marked by how high of a percentage is biofuel, for example a mixture of 20% biodiesel and 80% petroleum would be called B20. This is the max mix suitable for most cars right now in the United States. Biodiesel contains about 8% less energy per gallon when used compared to petroleum diesel. So for people who use B20 fuel could potentially see a 1-2% difference in performance, but most users have not reported any significant differences. Some have reported differences in exhaust fumes, but mechanically there have been no reports. Sadly biodiesel does have the ability to destroy an engine. A common way people produce biodiesel is to obtain old fryer oil from restaurants. In order for this oil to be converted into biodiesel it has to be cleaned thoroughly. The oil needs to be filtered for particles, like old fried food, and there needs to be no water in the oil. If the old fryer oil is not properly filtered the particles and water will cause serious damage to the engines that are using the unclean biodiesel. Compared with petroleum diesel, biodiesel in a conventional petroleum diesel engine substantially reduces tailpipe emissions of unburned hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, sulfates, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and nitrated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Also, biodiesel improves fuel lubricity and raises the cetane number of the fuel; the lubricity of petroleum diesel is much less than biodiesel.

Biodiesel has a great chance of becoming our new petroleum. Many vehicle manufacturers are beginning to produce diesel engines for small sedans. The Volkswagen car company is one that has significantly done so. Biodiesel isn’t just for large trucks, or specific biodiesel engines. Biodiesel can be run in any diesel burning engine, although biodiesel specific engines would be much more efficient and safer to use. Biodiesel also has the potential to ruin and engine if not used 100% correctly or if a user does not follow the manufacturer’s percent suggestion. For example if a user has an engine that should only run B10, using B20 biodiesel would result in damage to the engine. Like earlier mentioned the technology of biodiesel has been steadily increasing. Mixtures have gone from B2 to B5 to B20 and according to the New York state department of energy B100 is a possibility for the near future.

New York State, along with the whole United States is starting to provide incentives and funding to encourage more biodiesel development and more biodiesel usage. Biofuel producers in New York State may qualify for a state tax credit of $0.15 per gallon of biodiesel (B100) or ethanol produced after the production facility has produced, and made available for sale, 40,000 gallons of biofuel per year. There is also the Biofuel Station Initiative Program, which provides funding to retail fueling stations offering E85 and biodiesel blends in the state, and to petroleum terminal operators to store, blend, and dispense biofuels. There is the Alternative Fuel Vehicle (AFV) and Fueling Infrastructure Funding and Technical Assistance. This is another program funded by The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). The program provides financial and technical assistance to public, private, and not-for-profit organizations who want to evaluate the feasibility and cost of adding AFVs and fueling facilities to their operations. NYSERDA also provides funding for projects that enhance mobility, improve efficiency, reduce congestion, and diversity transportation methods and fuels through research and development of advanced technologies. According to the New York State Department of Energy there will be about thirteen new diesel burning cars that can use biodiesel by 2015. These cars include Audi A6, A7, A4, and Q5, BMW 328d and 7 series, Chevrolet Cruze, Jeep Grand Cherokee, Mazda6, Mercedes-Benz E250 BlueTec and GLK250, Porsche Cajun, and Ram 1500 EcoDiesel.

Many restaurant owners are part of the new biodiesel technology and market. There are companies that will pay restaurant owners for their old cooking oil. These companies will then clean the oil and convert it into biodiesel to sell. If you take 100 pounds of old oil and mix it with about 10 pounds of short-chain alcohol, it is possible to get about 100 pounds of biodiesel. Currently biodiesel is more expensive than petroleum diesel. In 2012 nationwide B20 cost $3.95 per gallon and B99 or B100 cost $4.20 per gallon. An American based company called SmartFuel will buy used oil for $.75 per gallon. Currently McDonalds sells their used cooking oil to be used for biodiesel, along with millions of other restaurants. The income restaurants gain from these companies who collect old oil will also help to provide incentive to encourage biodiesel production and use.

I believe that biodiesel will be very viable in the near future. There is already a copious amount of new biodiesel technology that has improved in 5 years; I can only imagine what will happen in ten to fifteen years. People are becoming more open to the use of biodiesel fuel as more vehicles come to the market. The New York State incentives have made a huge impact on biodiesel technologies and they can only get better from here. In present time the profit motive seems make things move much faster. Having so much funding and incentives helps to make this new green technology much more viable. The impact it will have on the world will also be tremendous. Thinking about how many vehicles that run on petroleum products now and how many emissions there are, replacing all of those engines with biodiesel engines almost eliminates the emissions. Having no car and truck emissions would be an enormous improvement to our environment. I believe we can expect this new technology to almost completely take over the use of petroleum in 20 years. Already the EU produced about 1.38 billion gallons of biodiesel, compared to only 111 million gallons in the US. A lot more people drive diesel engines in the EU than in the US. The EU also has subsidies in rapeseed oil, which is one of the main feedstocks used for biodiesel. The US as the ability to produce amounts that reach the EU’s but the US seems to be unwilling to do so. Perhaps bringing in even more of a motive can help. Biodiesel has already showed its potential overseas and it clearly is already viable. The downfall is not as many people are willing to turn to diesel engines and start using biodiesel in the United States. In May of 2011 there was approximately 77.2 million gallons of biodiesel produced, in May of 2012 there was 99.7 million gallons produced, and in May of 2013 there was 110.7 million gallons produced. It is easy to see that biodiesel is already increasing in production and in use; it is viable as we speak. When we will see its effects as a whole will depend on how much more dependent the US will become on biodiesel rather than petroleum.

Biodiesel is non-toxic, produced from renewable resources, can be used in most diesel engines especially new ones, produces less air pollution, produces fewer greenhouse gas emissions (reduces CO2 by 15%), is biodegradable, non toxic, and is safer to handle. Petroleum diesel is toxic to the environment, not biodegradable, invasive to produce, not renewable, produces a very high amount of greenhouse gasses, unsafe to handle and transport and can be replaced. Currently biodiesel is the most efficient and effective source of biofuel to replace petroleum diesel. The viability of this product is very high and its effect on the world is substantially high. The green process of biofuel has the potential to completely change how much petroleum we use. It is a renewable resource so it will never diminish. Biodiesel is the next best green product.


References

  • Fazal, M., Hasseb, A., & Masjuki, H. (2011, February). Biodiesel feasibility study: An evaluation of material compatibility; performance; emission and engine durability. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 15(2). Retrieved from ScienceDirect.
  • Simeonova, M., Georgieva, V., & Alexiev, C. (1989). Cytogenetic investigations of human subjects occupationally exposed to chemicals from the petroleum-processing industry. Environmental Research, 48(2), 145-153.
  • Veltman, K., Huijbregts, M., Rye, H., & Hertwich, E. (2011). Including impacts of particulate emissions on marine ecosystems in life cycle assessment: the case of offshore oil and gas production. Integrated Environmental Assessment And Management, 7(4), 678-686. doi:10.1002/ieam.246
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