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April 15, 2005 |
Processing costs using dry flakes were estimated at $1.02 per gallon, which is $2.12 less than for biodiesel made from full-moisture soy flakes.
Washington, D.C. [RenewableEnergyAccess.com] A scientist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) may have found a new way to remove a costly component of biodiesel production.
Michael Haas, a biochemist with the ARS Eastern Regional Research Center's
Fats, Oils and Animal Coproducts Research Unit in Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania has
developed a new approach to synthesizing biodiesel.
Soybean oil is the prevalent starting material in the United States for
biodiesel, and its relatively high production cost results in a high resale cost
for this renewable fuel.
The method developed by Haas and his colleagues eliminates the use of hexane, an
air pollutant regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, from the
production of soy oil for biodiesel synthesis. Hexane, a colorless, flammable
liquid derived from petroleum, is traditionally used to extract vegetable oil
triglycerides from the raw agricultural material before biodiesel production.
The new method eliminates the conventional oil extraction step. Instead, the
oilseed is incubated with methanol and sodium hydroxide, which are currently
used to process extracted oil.
The researchers found that the moisture naturally present in soybeans - as much
as 10 percent in soy flakes - requires that a large amount of methanol be used
in this reaction. However, using dried flakes greatly reduced the methanol
requirement. Processing costs using dry flakes were estimated at $1.02 per
gallon, which is $2.12 less than for biodiesel made from full-moisture soy
flakes.
The researchers are refining their economic model to account for income from the
sale of the lipid-free, protein-rich flakes left over from the biodiesel
reaction for use as animal feeds, and to account for differences in the cost of
the refined oil and flaked soybean feedstocks.
ARS has filed a patent application on the process, which might be useful in
producing biodiesel from lipids remaining in the corn meal byproduct of
corn-to-ethanol plants.
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