American Ingenuity Leads to Biodiesel Breakthrough
A small group of unassuming mid-westerners has discovered what could be a complete game-changer for the global biodiesel industry. Their new system makes biodiesel in mere seconds, creates a product that costs half the price, produces no waste, and can use any animal fat or vegetable oil as a feedstock.
Even though I’m sometimes down on my country because of the pathetic state of our government, the thing that always makes my patriotism swell is the truly amazing and unexpected ingenuity that seems to spring forth from the American people.
And in this tale, American ingenuity doesn’t get much more classic. A student and his professor at a small college smack dab in the middle of the heartland that virtually nobody’s ever heard of, have figured out a way to make biodiesel quickly, cheaply, and efficiently from a very small package.
- » See also: Biofuels Breakthrough: Making Fuel From Air With Engineered Microbes
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We’re not just talking an incremental improvement, we’re talking half the price and a tiny fraction of the time — a revolutionary change for the biodiesel industry. Think on the order of saving $2 for every gallon and going from raw materials to biodiesel in a few seconds versus many hours.
Not only that, the process can convert any animal fat or vegetable oil, mixed in any ratio, into biodiesel using the same compact reactor in a continuous stream. Compare this to the current method which converts the oil or fat to biodiesel over many hours in huge vat batches and creates a lot of potentially hazardous waste products.
The Mcgyan® process (so named for the inventors McNeff, Gyberg and Yan) started as a required undergraduate chemistry project for student Brian Krohn at Augsburg College in Minneapolis, MN. Krohn and his major professor, Arlin Gyberg, were looking at ways to catalyze the raw materials into biodiesel using a process called esterification.
The basic idea was to run the raw fats and oils over a sulfated zirconia catalyst to change them into biodiesel. This idea isn’t new, but the duo thought they could improve on it. In the end, the pair enlisted the help of another scientist Ben Yan and an Augsburg alum Clayton McNeff.
McNeff already owned a company that made zirconia separating columns which are typically used for something completely different. With a little modification, these columns were turned into sulfated zirconia biodiesel reactors.
Basically, the process works like this:
- Raw fats and oils of any type are combined with an alcohol
- This mixture is fed through a sulfated zirconia column heated to 300 degrees Celsius
- Their Easy Fatty Acid Removal (EFAR) system recycles any unreacted raw material back through the reactor
- Excess alcohol is recycled back through the reactor
- Pure biodiesel comes out the end
The advantages of the system are:
- No waste produced; No washing or neutralizing of the biodiesel is necessary
- 100% conversion of raw materials to biodiesel
- Any raw fat or oil can be used to make biodiesel
- Very efficient due to heat recapture from the column
- Sulfated zirconia catalyst never needs replacing
- Very small footprint of the reactor system, uses an extremely small amount of area for the amount of biodiesel produced
- Essentially no emissions and no waste stream from the process; Easy permitting from the government
The group has formed a company called Ever Cat Fuels and is in the process of building a 3 million gallon per year (MMgy) commercial biodiesel facility with the intention of scaling it up to 30 MMgy in the next 3-5 years. As soon as the Ever Cat plant is producing biodiesel successfully, the group plans on licensing the technology to other interested parties.
Bada-bing, bada-bang. Anybody have start-up capital to help me license their tech (I’m only part-way kidding)?
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Source: Biodiesel Magazine
Image Credit: Ever Cat Fuels
If one day you want to become a serious journalist do not start your documents with stupid rhetoric like “I’ll tell you what — even though I’m sometimes down on my country because of the pathetic state of our government…”
@ da,
I suppose you’re an expert on “serious” journalism? In your view, what makes it “stupid rhetoric”… could it be the fact that it’s what the vast majority of people in this country truly feel right now?
I actually hope I get an answer from you, but, like so many of the commenters that come through here and leave nasty remarks, I’m afraid that I’ll probably never hear from you again.
This is called blogging, it’s not “journalism” in the traditional sense. In fact, most bloggers I know are happy to never be considered in the same league as the Main Stream Media.
Blogging is part opinion and part reporting and unlike “serious journalists” I actually support the information in my reports with links to citations.
You mention in the article that any seperated Fats are returned back through the process. “Their Easy Fatty Acid Removal (EFAR) system recycles any unreacted raw material back through the reactor”…Anyway, when the unreated raw materials retrun REactor, do they indeed get broken down more and then sent onto the EFAR, or do they just get compounded with the Fat that is coming through? I would think if it does not get broken down anymore, the Fat componenet just builds and builds. Just curious
@ Dan
I really don’t know how the EFAR system works exactly. I think they use a fractionating still to extract the excess reaction products and alcohol.
On the Ever Cat website there’s a number to contact them for more specific information on their process.
Nick - I just wanted to say I love your website, I’ve checked it everyday since I discovered it 2 weeks ago!
So would this new system be able to create biodesiel out of any plant, such as algae or corn? Could it be used for cellulosic ethanol? Or is biodesiel and cellulosic ethanol two completely different things?
David,
Thanks for your compliment! Glad to have you as a new reader.
According to the inventors, this system could make biodiesel from any vegetable oil or animal fat — which includes oil produced from algae. Corn is not a good oil source so would not be suitable for making biodiesel from.
Biodiesel and cellulosic ethanol are two completely different things. They are both biofuels, but that’s where the similarities end. Ethanol is much more like gasoline than diesel.
@david- If the process is tuned for fats/oils, it likely will not also accept cellulose as a feedstock. Check the chemical structure of these substances via Wikipedia for more info.
>the thing that always makes my patriotism swell is the truly amazing and unexpected ingenuity that seems to spring forth from the American people.
TAKE THAT EUROPE, RIGHT IN YOUR STUPID FACE!!!!1!!1!!11
Nick,
your enthusiasm not withstanding, I don’t believe that your argument for this being a great day for America gets boosted much by the fact that this discovery was widely published in March of this year. And while I don’t purport to be an authority on “serious journalism”, I would have to agree with the first comment both for reasons of style (”I’ll tell you what”) and logic (you never support your assertion of this discovery being “classic” American ingenuity).
That said, I am glad I found your blog about this because I do think it is an important step forward toward a more sustainable future. And, for what it is worth, I totally agree with you on the state of the US government!
PS: It’s *Arlin* Gyberg?
Anonymous,
Thanks, I think?
Just some counterpoints:
I never said it was a “great day” for America and I never insinuated that this happened “today.” I think it’s pretty clear I’ve known this has been announced for a while.
Although its been announced for a while, I think the amount of response my post has generated speaks for itself about how “widely published” its been. The reason I decided to cover it here was that the only people who seemed to know about till now were scientists and industry insiders.
“I’ll tell you what” is a colloquialism… you know like something that a character from “King of the Hill” would say when starting a conversation. It’s common slang. I’m sure that it can be easily interpreted as me being a pretentious asshole, but it’s all in how you read it I guess.
How is it not classic American ingenuity? It seemed pretty classic to me. I guess I assumed that readers could agree or or not without me wasting time explaining what my definition of “classic” is and how it represents American ingenuity. For the record, I think that some normal dudes in Minnesota taking an already existing off-the-shelf apparatus and co-opting it for something this extraordinary without vast supplies of money and time is pretty classically representative of the ingenuity of Americans.
PS. I fixed Arlin’s name. Thanks for that.