Environ-friendly Fuel

Biodiesel is fast replacing petroleum diesel for use in car engines as it is found to be more friendly to the engines as well as to the environment as this biofuel emits less smoke and toxic gases in the air. 100% biodiesel or B100 can be used to run a vehicle. Alternatively this fuel can also be blended in any proportion with diesel in the diesel engines of modern automobiles. However gaskets and hoses made with natural rubber as found in automobiles made up to the early nineties tend to be degraded more by biodiesel than by petro-diesel because of certain solvent properties of biodiesel. Modern engines however use FKM in place of rubber as it does not react with biodiesel. The transition from petro-diesel to biodiesel may be made gradually since the latter is often found to disintegrate the residual petro-diesel deposit on the fuel tanks resulting in clogging of the fuel filters. A blend of the two types of fuels in appropriate proportions should be resorted to before switching over fully to biodiesel to reduce this possibility. A better option while using biodiesel is to replace the fuel filters on the auto engines and heaters.

Availability

Applications and productions of biodiesel are rising in Europe, USA and Canada. It is being used in mixture with diesel in automobiles and the growing demand for this fuel has made it available in the fueling stations in the above countries. Petroleum diesel is although cheaper at present than biodiesel, perishable nature of the former cannot keep its cost down in the long term. While man cannot restore the gradually depleting oil reserve, more and more agricultural subsidies will be made available to encourage production of biodiesel ultimately bringing down its price.

Uses

The debate continues over which one is a better car fuel- petroleum diesel or biodiesel. Producers of petroleum driven by their vested interests try to establish that petroleum diesel is better for car engines. The producers of biodiesel claim that pure biodiesel in fact increases the life of the engine by reducing its wear and tear. This is supported by independent bodies also. Fuel stations sell biodiesel produced with standards set by the authorities regulating production and use of the fuel and the consumers are satisfied with performance of this fuel. However the higher cost still encourages the consumers to opt for the petroleum diesel fuel for their car engines or blending small proportion of biodiesel with the traditional oil. Use of less than 5% of biodiesel in the blend was initially advised by car dealers like Volkswagen and DaimlerChrysler in the USA to secure lives of their car engines but the recommendation has since gone up to 20%. Even 2% addition of biodiesel in the mixture reduces the viscosity of petroleum diesel and increases the lubricity of the mixed fuel. The standard proportion of biodiesel now followed most widely is 5%. World’s first biodiesel train by Richard Branson, the famous British businessman, was run on 20% biodiesel. Branson’s first commercial aircraft to run on biodiesel in February, 2008 signaled the important role this fuel is going to play in future aviation.

1853-1976
Long before the advent of diesel engine, studies on conversion of vegetable oil into biodiesel were conducted in 1853 by the two scientists Duffy and Patrick. It was only on August 10, 1893 that Rudolf Diesel ran the first diesel engine at Augsburg, Germany and the day is still commemorated as the “International Biodiesel Day” every year in honor of that landmark event. In 1900 at the World Fair in Paris, Otto Company of France demonstrated a diesel engine that ran on peanut oil devised by Rudolf Diesel which was a pioneering effort in the development of biodiesel although strictly speaking it was not exactly biodiesel but biofuel since transesterification, the process for converting vegetable oil into biodiesel was unknown at that time. Rudolf Diesel being a visionary realized the important role the fuel made from biomass was going to play in future for running engines. However the makers of biofuel from vegetable oil were finding the process expensive and the petroleum industry took this opportunity to aggressively market petroleum diesel which was cheaper. Petroleum oil compared to vegetable oil was found to be less gelling and the diesel engines were modified accordingly by the manufacturers during the twenties to enable use of petroleum diesel. Biomass fuels like biodiesel as a result got shelved for many years and the manufacturing facilities fell into decay. In spite of this slump, the IC engines continued to use vegetable oil as fuel during the period from the twenties and up to the fifties in countries like the UK, France, Germany, Brazil, China and Japan. The first production of actual biodiesel was by Chavanne, a scientist at the University of Brussels in Belgium who got a patent for it in 1937. This patent was for the process of transesterification or alcoholysis by which vegetable oil was converted for use as fuel. The process involved treating vegetable oils with ethanol and methanol to replace glycerol with alcohol after separating fatty acid from the glycerol. This production process continued till the mid seventies.

1977-1989
A modified process of transesterification to produce biodiesel using ethanol was patented in 1977 by Parente, a Brazilian scientist. This process has since been recognized and accepted by the automobile industry as the standardized one for making biodiesel internationally. Another product ‘bio-kerosene’ by Tecbio owned by Parente has also been patented and certified by Boeing and NASA for use as aviation biodiesel. In 1979 a process was developed in South Africa whereby sunflower oil was converted to biodiesel by the process of transesterification. However it was not before 1983 that biodiesel suitable for use in automobile engine was produced, tested and accepted worldwide. The first plant using rapeseed oil to produce biodiesel at industrial scale was set up in 1989 by the Austrian firm Gaskoks.

1990-Present
Biodiesel plants started to be set up in many European countries from the early nineties. Continuous researches are being conducted to increase the proportion of the fuel up to 50% in combination with petroleum diesel. Service stations in Europe are selling 100% biodiesel. Minnesota in 2005 became the first state in the USA to stipulate minimum 2% biodiesel to be mixed in diesel fuel.

More articles:
Biodiesel Fundamentals – Biodiesel: Applications & Uses