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
“I just don’t think it’s necessary to preface a positive statement about the US with negative context, unless, of course, I’m trying to keep my street cred with the left-leaning technorati that I’m writing for.”
If you do not like criticism as a preface, then why do you use it? Are you trying to keep your street cred with the extremists who harass or assassinate the character of anyone who disagrees with them?
Take a good look in the mirror. The monster you seek is yourself.
Context of a negative environment accentuates the positive. You fail to show a left/right angle to this concept, because there is none. It is simple math.
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How is this ingenuity typically American? Does it differ from is ingenuity in other countries? If so how?
All this flag waving that you Yankees do seems to be a sign of insecurity.
By the way, this blind patriotism makes it very easy for Bush and his cronies to manipulate you. Just accuse somebody of lack of patriotism and their arguments will be ignored. Just say that something is the American Way, and it can not be criticised.
Pete,
I (and other commenters) have addressed your questions in previous comments. Please read through them for a perspective on what you consider “blind patriotism” and an explanation as to why I considered this “American ingenuity” and also why I really didn’t feel the need to explain why it was classically representative of American ingenuity until forced to by commenters.
BTW, I have a German wife who grew up in former East Germany and two kids who both have dual citizenship and I’ve lived in other countries besides the US for extended periods… so I’d say that the results of my life pretty well speak for themselves about my world view.
I think this sounds great, but personally I’d like to see this arrive in the form of home kits rather than focusing on large-scale production. I’d rather see local biodiesel coops sprout up around using waste fryer grease from local restaurants with this tech. That way less fuel is burned shipping the feedstock to processing, and there is little threat ov converting food crop fields to fuel crop fields.
first of all, DA was right, your journalism is weak at best - and that is coming from an accomplished ireporter so i KNOW what i am talking about.
second of all, you have obviously missed some major points - there is no way they can produce biodiesel with no waste products at all - it sounds to me like you have no clue what you are talking about.
i have been running grease since 1977 and currently have a 12 valve cummins powered hummer and run nothing but grease, no bio or any of that. I am the first black greaser so i KNOW what i am talking about.
Keep on greasin,
Roger Carver
BLACK GREASE,
What is an “ireporter”? Do you mean you’ve submitted comments to CNN’s iReport scheme? My experience is that someone who tells you straight up that they “KNOW” what they’re talking about doesn’t have any clue what they’re talking about.
The level of an individual’s knowledge is something that usually becomes apparent after some exposure to that individual… my first exposure to you as an individual is leaving me with little confidence that you truly “KNOW” what you’re talking about.
Can I ask you, did you read through any of the links I used as citations in my post? If you had, you would see that I’m not making any of this up and that, at least according to other published reports and Ever Cat white papers, the process produces essentially no waste… only a trace amount of glycerin.
Good to see a chemistry department produce some interesting and potentially useful chemistry. The process has a high conversion rate and a short reaction time which might make it economic, if the cost of feed is low enough and the price of the biodiesel high enough.
The work has appeared in a peer reviewed journal (Applied Catalysis, published by Reed Elesvier) which means that the work has been reviewed by at least one other and possibly two academics in the same field of catalysis to ensure that it isn’t baloney. That’s good enough for me.
If you want to see the original work in its full glory follow this link: http://tiny.cc/b3T3x. You might want to check the patent position first though.
[...] energy independence — and they can do it in a way that doesn’t affect food prices, actually costs less at the pump, and provides an environmental [...]
I too am very excited about the McGyan process and think it could be the source of a signifigant amounts of very low sulfur biodiesel especially if a reliable source of algae is available. However is EverCat progressing? Since March very little has been published. Are they near production on their pilot plant? If so have they licenced the process to a waiting world?