Posts Tagged ‘biofuel’

Market Analysis For Biodiesel Production

Sunday, December 21st, 2008

The main priority for those producing large amounts of biodiesel fuel is finding a suitable market. You have to locate your own targeted market where the consumers will buy biodiesel as repetitive customers and not just use it for single purchases. These returned customers are crucial in the expansion and profitability for  the business. Thus, your business and production of biodiesel will exist as long as possible.

To assist you in deciding which market is appropriate to pursue, this article provides basic background information regarding the biodiesel industry.  The availiability of  feedstock has been a factor that remains an obstacle for further improvement of biodiesel technology. On the other hand, demand of biodiesel is on the rise with the governments of many countries encouraging the production and advancement of biodiesel products and technology in their country. If in 2007 only 20 countries produced biodiesel, an estimated 200 countries will produce this alternative renewable energy  in the following years.

One major difference between earlier generations and contemporary situations is the availabilily of raw materials. In early generations, expensive feedstock such as soy, rapeseed and palm oil were used. They are all consumable products and therefore more expensive. On the other hand, alternative feedstock such as Jatropha can provide cheaper raw material with almost same quality. This fact encourages public and private sectors to participate in the biodiesel industry.

If we can find our market, we can get our market share in the biodiesel business. Producers that are able to evolve and adapt with the latest technology, government policies, and feedstock issues will definitely lead the market. We should prepare ourselves to quickly adapt to any issues or changes regarding biodiesel as a whole to achieve long term success.

For the last three years, usage of biodiesel has been increasing in the United States and Europe. We can even find fueling gas stations across the country. Since 2005, automotive manufacturers have started to release cars which accept biodiesel as an acceptable fuel additive. Similar improvements have also been implemented for railroad and aircraft use.

Another use of biodiesel is heating oil. Biodiesel can be used as a heating oil in private or commercial boilers. Biodiesel B20 could therefore reduce CO2 emission in the UK up to 1.5 million tons annually.

The current market for biodiesel is still very small although there is a large potential for this to become a larger scale activity and mainstream. With recent research into biodiesel (including the invention of cheaper and suitable crops such as algae and fungus), balance between supply and demand will be reached in the next few years and current investors will be the most benefited in years to come.

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Step By Step Making Biodiesel Fuel

Sunday, December 21st, 2008

Making biodiesel fuel may seem like a challenge but the process is quite simple. Here, we provide you with general step by steps on how to make biodiesel in your own home. These steps include the preparation of tools and materials.

The first step is to know what raw material you are going to use. Although there are various type of oil that you can use, the steps to creation for each one is similar. The following steps are necessary to complete your task:

  1. Collecting your raw material oil. You can choose your raw material based on how easy you get them and the price.
  2. Filtration and purification of inbound waste oil. You should remove the dirt and other non oil material especially when you are dealing with waste vegetable oil. Purification often has to be done to remove water. This process is necessary since water causes tryglycerides to hydrolize and produces salt of fatty acid instead of ester itself when undergoing transesterification.
  3. Titration and Neutralization of free fatty acid. The titration process determines sample oil. Some sample oil is titrated with base solution until neutral so the concentration is can be determined and the amount of base that will be added to the raw waste vegetable oil may be calculated.
  4. Transesterification process. Calculated quantity of base, usually we use sodium hydroxide (NaOH), which is added slowly to the alcohol solution and stirred. Triglyceride inside the oil should be converted into methyl ester with help of alcohol such as methanol so Fatty Acid Methyl Ester (FAME) is produced. For transesterification process, we need warm temperature solution and 5-8 hours stirring process.
  5. Finishing process. Transesterification process gives us two layer solution as a result. The lower layer is the waste product containing glycerine and other products. Meanwhile, top layer with lower density is the main product which is biodiesel with alcohol traces. After lower and top layer are separated from each other with a decantation process, you should eliminate alcohol traces with distillation or extraction with water. After this final process, you have made your own biodiesel.

The results, including the conversion percentage will vary each time. Many factors determine how much conversion you get such as temperature, quality of oil etc. These steps are easy in a laboratory scale, whereas a higher scale operation will require different tools and machinary. But generally, the steps are quite simple.

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Making Biodiesel From Vegetable Oil

Sunday, December 21st, 2008

If you use oil in your own kitchen, don’t throw it away because it can be converted into biofuel. Used vegetable oil is one of the raw material for the production of biodiesel. There are many vegetable oils that you can use as a raw material for this conversion. Some of them are classified as Waste Vegetable Oil or Used Vegetable Oil and Pure Plant Oil.

Waste Vegetable Oil (WVO) or Used Vegetable Oil (UVO) is oil that discarded from restaurants or households. From the fast food restaurants, snack factories and industrial potato processing plants in the United States themselves, they produce more than 11 billion liters of Waste Vegetable Oil in a year. You can imagine how much WVO produced by people all over the world. This huge potential should encourage us to produce biodiesel by our selves to utilize our own WVO for economical and environmental reasons.

Pure Plant Oil (PPO) or Straight Vegetable Oil (SVO) is oil from particular plant that are specifically planted to produce biodiesel. In the last ten years, many governments around the world encourage their scientists to create technology that converts relatively cheap plant oil into fuel. Governments are also give ease to investors who want to put in their effort and capital to develop biodiesel technology. This  also assists the agricultural sector because investors who want to build plantation can feel safe with their invested capital.

There are many kinds of plants that can be used as a raw material to produce biodiesel. Some of them may be familiar to you so you can start making diesel fuel immediately.

  1. Rapeseed, scientifically called Brassica napus, is a yellow flower member of family Brassicaceae. Also known as rape, rapa or rapeseed. Its seeds can contain nearly 65% oil that can be used for consumption and fuel purposes. At the beginning, cost to produce biodiesel from rapeseed was higher than fossil diesel fuel. With higher demand, the price become even higher than before. One of the advantages using rapeseed to make diesel fuel is they produce more oil per land area compared with other oil source plants. That’s why in Europe, rapeseed is preferred.
  2. Soybean, is also a popular source to make diesel fuel. Its scientific name is Glycine max. Soybean actually has a lot of nutrition for our body. Besides that, soybean also produce oil as raw material for making diesel fuel. In the United States, nearly 80% of domestic biodiesel was produced from soybean oil.
  3. Jatropha, is a genus name with more than 100 species. Its seeds generally contain 40% oil and count as a future raw material for diesel fuel production. Oil from one of the species, Jatropha curcas, has been used as a raw for biodiesel in many Asian country such as Indonesia and Phillipines. One advantage of the Jatropha, is you can combine it with another crops such as coffee, fruits and vegetables.
  4. Palm oil, this is quite well known as it is an oil mostly used as cooking oil all over the world. Oil from palm is known as a genuine counter for the greenhouse effect according to Greenpeace. Unfortunately, the resources to build palm plantations need newly-cleared area which sacrafices an area of the forest. That’s why Jatropha is preferred over palm because jatropha can live in marginal area such as ex-mining.

There are many plants that produce oil that can be used to make diesel fuel, although the four mentioned above are the most prevalent. If you do plan to make diesel fuel yourself, the options above should provide you with enough information to get started.

As well as vegetable oils, you can try other sources such as animal fats, algae and oil from halophytes. These also have potential and are promising from an economical point of view. Algae, especially because of its high reproducibility and potential to be grown in sewage areas.

To produce your own biodiesel in medium or large scales, the first step is to choose your source of oil. Alternatives listed above should provide suitable options that are better and affordable for you.

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Biofuel; Fuel Alternative and Environmently Friendly

Sunday, December 21st, 2008

Fuel prices have been fluctuating lately and alternative fuel sources are becoming very important to society. The decreasing amount of oil stock worldwide, plus environmental issues have increased the priority for the development of alternative energy research and development.

Biofuel is one of the most popular forms of alternative energy. It refers to fuel that is made from solids, liquids or gases from organic materials. Although burning fossil fuel produces more energy in forms such as petroleum or kerosene, you also produce carbon dioxide and water. The release of too much carbon dioxide may effect the temperature of the world and this is known as the green house effect.

In the United States, more than 90% of greenhouse gas emissions are a result of the combustion of  fossil fuel. Other pollutants such as nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide, volatile organic compounds and metals are also produced. Nitric, sulphuric and carbonic acids are other reactants in fossil fuel burning processes. These acids have potential to fall down upon the Earth as acid rain. This acid rain is quite dangerous since the acid may have a dangerous impact the environment and natures balance. More than that, fossil fuel also contains radioactive material such as thorium and uranium. Radioactive materials are known to be very dangerous for human being and the environment.

These facts may assist us in discovering another energy source that is environment friendly aswell as affordable. Biofuel is one of the best alternatives at the moment and there are many advantages if you use biofuel as your prime source of energy. Some of them are listed below and might help you to compare biofuel with fossil fuel in general.

Emissions

Research has proved that biofuel has potential to reduce carbon dioxide emission. For example, B20 (diesel fuel blended with 20% biodiesel) may reduces carbon dioxide emission up to 30% and also carbon monoxide up to 20%. Because of this research, biofuel and especially biodiesel, are recognized as the most effective technologies available to us today in helping reduce our carbon footprint.

Many countries have a problem dealing with pollution and the greenhouse effect. Massive usage of fossils fuel in developed countries affects the balance of delicate ecosystems, especially in developing and small, third world countries. Island countries such as ones in the Pacific Ocean will be in greater danger if the greenhouse effect worsens. Snow melting in Arctic regions can lead to higher sea levels and may endanger some countries. This is why countries all over the world need to agree to enforce methods to reduce emission levels and usage of fossil fuels.

Health Effects

Carbon dioxide that is produced during the combustion of fossil fuel is dangerous for your health. Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons which are produced as byproducts of fuel burning and are widely known as a cancer precursor compounds. Biodiesel emissions are proven to produce less PAH compounds than petroleum. Biodiesel also makes air safer for people to breathe by reducing the PAH by up to 90%!

Energy Balance

Biofuel is very important for the future. Use of biofuel will steadily increase and you have the power to help this uprising because it is so easy to make your own biofuel for your car.

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