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Scientists Use New Catalysis Method to Boost Biodiesel Yields

posted by janrinok on Tuesday September 22 2015, @11:28PM   Printer-friendly
from the step-4 dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

A team at the Catalysis Institute at Cardiff University is hoping to make biofuel production more efficient and sustainable by recycling the leftovers from the process.

Currently, biofuel production uses methanol, which is combined with fats and oils. The process generates glycerol as a waste product, but the material is too full of impurities for cost effective reuse. This is where researchers spotted an opportunity to increase the yield, using a simple catalysis to recycle glycerol into methanol that can be used to produce more biodiesel.

They added water to glycerol as a source of hydrogen and used MgO (magnesium oxide) and CeO2 (cerium oxide) as catalysts. They experimented with different temperatures, catalysis periods and chemical combinations to test their idea. They say the results they achieved point the way to a new catalytic route from aqueous glycerol to methanol, with the potential to increase yield by an estimated 10 percent.

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  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday September 23 2015, @07:56AM

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday September 23 2015, @07:56AM (#240433) Homepage
    Was from a PhD-student flatmate who was collaborating with a team in Cardiff. They were using catalysts to break down water into hydrogen and oxygen, such that the H2 could be used as fuel, as part of a "future fuels" initiative, funded by the government (who are in turn funded by the taxpayer, a set of which I am a member). Digging only slightly deeper, I asked how close to parity they were getting, and he indicated that they needed to put in hundreds of times as much energy as they could even theoretically get back out from burning the H2. OK, that's just early prototypes for the system, so I asked where they expected the research to lead, parity wise, and got the response "nowhere near parity, ever". And I trusted him on that, as he's a scientist. Who's leaching my fucking tax money on impossible projects (twice, I was paying rent to him as I was staying in a student flat over the summer when starting a new job in the region). UK residents may now feel the same indignation about a university in their country. And probably have the right to extrapolate.
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 23 2015, @11:28AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 23 2015, @11:28AM (#240465)

    I doesn't have to be anywhere near parity to be better than what we have, and to be economically favourable.