What is Biodiesel?
• Alternative fuel for diesel engines
• Made from vegetable oil or animal fat
• Meets health effect testing (CAA)
• Lower emissions, High flash point (>300F), Safer
• Biodegradable, Essentially non-toxic.
• Chemically, biodiesel molecules are mono-alkyl
esters produced usually from triglyceride esters
Fatty Acid
FA Alcohol
Glycerin
FA FA
FA Biodiesel
Vegetable Oil
Biodiesel can be used in
existing Diesel Engines
• Pure Biodiesel (B100) or blended with petroleum
diesel (B20, BXX).
• Rudolf Diesel: peanut oil.
• Little or no engine modifications
• Use existing fuel distribution network.
• Available now
Environmental Issues
• Burning fossil fuels increases atmospheric levels of
carbon dioxide
• Fossil fuels are a Biodiesel’s Closed
finite resource Carbon Cycle
30% Increase
Graph taken from USF Oceanography webpage
Biodiesel Samples
Chemistry of Triglycerides
• Biodiesel is made from the combination of a triglyceride
with a monohydroxy alcohol (i.e. methanol, ethanol…).
• What is a triglyceride? Made from a combination of
glycerol and three fatty acids:
Transesterification
While actually a multi-step process, the overall
reaction looks like this:
CH2OOR1 catalyst CH2OH
| |
CHOOR2 + 3CH3OH 3CH3OORx + CHOH
| |
CH2OOR3 CH2OH
Triglyceride 3 Methanols Biodiesel Glycerin
R1, R2, and R3 are fatty acid alkyl groups (could be different, or the
same), and depend on the type of oil. The fatty acids involved
determine the final properties of the biodiesel (cetane number, cold
flow properties, etc.)
Individual step of Transesterification
First step, triglyceride turned into diglyceride, methoxide
(minus Na) joins freed FA to make biodiesel, Na joins
OH from water (from methoxide formation) to make
NaOH. Other H joins the diglyceride.
H O H
| | |
HCOR1 H HCO H O
| | | | |
HCOOR2 + HCONa +H2O CHOOR2 + HCOR1 + NaOH
| | | |
HCOR3 H HCOR3 H
| | | |
H O H O
Triglyceride + Methoxide + H2O Diglyceride + Biodiesel + NaOH
Pictorial by Graydon Blair of the Utah Biodiesel Cooperative
[Link]
After Glycerin removal, biodiesel now just needs to be
cleaned/purified before use:
“Appleseed”
style biodiesel
processor
(design by Maria
(Mark) Alovert).
Uses old electric
water heater as
main unit
Biodiesel Challenges
• Cold Weather Operation (Chemistry)
• Producing enough feedstock oil to replace
a large portion of petroleum (biology,
chemistry, physics, economics)
• Engine and emissions optimization
(chemistry, physics)
Summary
Alternative fuels and energy sources are an issue of increasing importance -
not only among the scientific and engineering community, but also in
economics and public policy. Alternatives need to be compared on scientific
and economic terms - which is not done well in the media.
Alternative fuels and energy sources provide an excellent opportunity to
introducing a variety of science topics, and increasing student interest in
those topics. Science and engineering fields are increasingly disciplinary -
lessons on biodiesel can demonstrate that clearly, by showing the
overlapping of biology, chemistry, and physics in studying this and other
alternative fuels. It can also demonstrate to students that science is not
independent of economics, and advancements in science can yield
considerable benefit to the general public (i.e. shifting from petroleum fuels
to domestically produced biofuels would create millions of jobs, improve
our economy, reduce pollution enormously, and eliminate a key strategic
concern for all countries - the dependence on foreign fuels).
