BioDieselNow - Renewable biodiesel fuel

I am copying and pasting the following from TDIClub.com's BioDiesel forum.  The original post is here:

http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=182813

Cool stuff. Nano to the rescue!

~BeetleGo

http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/531238/

Source: Iowa State University Released: Mon 02-Jul-2007, 13:00 ET
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New Catalyst May Revolutionize Biodiesel Production
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ALTERNATIVE ENERGY; BIODIESEL; NANOTECHNOLOGY; CHEMISTRY; TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER
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Victor Lin, a chemistry professor at Iowa State University, has developed a catalyst that he thinks will revolutionize biodiesel production. Lin has founded a company in Ames, Catilin Inc., to develop and market that technology.

Newswise — Line up 250 billion of Victor Lin’s nanospheres and you’ve traveled a meter. But those particles – and just the right chemistry filling the channels that run through them – could make a big difference in biodiesel production.

They could make production cheaper, faster and less toxic. They could produce a cleaner fuel and a cleaner glycerol co-product. And they could be used in existing biodiesel plants.

“This technology could change how biodiesel is produced,” said Victor Lin, an Iowa State University professor of chemistry, a program director for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory and the inventor of a nanosphere-based catalyst that reacts vegetable oils and animal fats with methanol to produce biodiesel. “This could make production more economical and more environmentally friendly.”

Lin is working with Mohr Davidow Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, Calif., the Iowa State University Research Foundation and three members of his research team to establish a startup company to produce, develop and market the biodiesel technology he invented at Iowa State.

The company, Catilin Inc., is just getting started in Ames. Catilin employees are now working out of two labs and a small office in the Roy J. Carver Co-Laboratory on the Iowa State campus. The company will also build a biodiesel pilot plant at the Iowa Energy Center’s Biomass Energy Conversion Facility in Nevada.

Lin said the company’s goal over the next 18 months is to produce enough of the nanosphere catalysts to increase biodiesel production from a lab scale to a pilot-plant scale of 300 gallons per day.

Lin will work with three company researchers and co-founders to develop and demonstrate the biodiesel technology and production process. They are Project Manager Jennifer Nieweg, who will earn a doctorate in chemistry from Iowa State this summer; Research Scientist Yang Cai, who earned a doctorate in chemistry from Iowa State in 2004 and worked on campus as a post-doctoral research associate; and Research Scientist Carla Wilkinson, a former Iowa State post-doctoral research associate and a former faculty member at Centro Universitario UNIVATES in Brazil.

Larry Lenhart, the president and chief executive officer of Catilin, said the company is now up and running. It has a research history. It has employees. It has facilities. It has money in the bank.

And he said the company has proven technology to work with.

The technology allows efficient conversion of vegetable oils or animal fats into fuel by using Lin’s nanospheres with acidic catalysts to react with the free fatty acids and basic catalysts for the oils.

All that makes biodiesel production “dramatically better, cheaper, faster,” Lenhart said.

The technology replaces sodium methoxide – a toxic, corrosive and flammable catalyst – in biodiesel production. And that eliminates several production steps including acid neutralization, water washes and separations. All those steps dissolve the toxic catalyst so it can’t be used again.

Catilin’s nanospheres are solid and that makes them easier to handle, Lenhart said. They can also be recovered from the chemical mixture and recycled. And they can be used in existing biodiesel plants without major equipment changes.

Lin said the catalyst has been under development for the past four years. The company will market the third generation of the catalyst – a version that’s much cheaper to produce than earlier, more uniform versions.

The technology was developed with the support of grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Basic Energy Sciences and the state’s Grow Iowa Values Fund. Patents for the technology are pending. Catilin has signed licensing agreements with Iowa State’s research foundation that allows the company to commercialize Lin’s invention.

As the company grows and demonstrates its technology, Lin said company leaders will have to decide whether the company will become a catalyst company, will work with partners to develop biodiesel plants or will produce its own biodiesel.

Even though he expects plenty of worldwide business for the new company, Lin said he’ll continue to work as an Iowa State professor.

“I’m not going to quit my day job,” he said. “And I’ll continue to do research in the catalysis and biorenewables area.”

© 2007 Newswise. All Rights Reserved.

WOW - good catch! Thanks for posting this up.

I wish the article was a bit more clear in its explanation. This text confused me a bit:

The technology allows efficient conversion of vegetable oils or animal fats into fuel by using Lin’s nanospheres with acidic catalysts to react with the free fatty acids and basic catalysts for the oils.

 

ebztz:

WOW - good catch! Thanks for posting this up.

I wish the article was a bit more clear in its explanation. This text confused me a bit:

The technology allows efficient conversion of vegetable oils or animal fats into fuel by using Lin’s nanospheres with acidic catalysts to react with the free fatty acids and basic catalysts for the oils.

 

I'm assuming they have two materials that they can make as nanospheres - a solid base and solid acid. Essentially it seems to just be a solid base catalyst and a solid acid catalyst, and perhaps you get a quicker reaction by making them into nanospheres?

I note that they say the old method produced explosive mixes but they will still use methanol with their new  catalyst

Slippery:

I note that they say the old method produced explosive mixes but they will still use methanol with their new  catalyst

Heh heh

This is one thing I've found very entertaining about almost any "new process" developed by anyone (even legitimate researchers) - there is always a tendency to ridicule the old/current method, to make your new process sound better. I'm not sure in this case how much of that is from a reporter misinterpreting what the researchers said (very very common), or if the researchers themselves were using this approach of unfairly ridiculing other methods to make theirs sound better. Either way, it is entertaining.

hi everyone:

 i came across this great catalyst from BASF, a liquid that will not create any water when mixed with methanol,  Na-Methylate, sodium methylate.

 
commercial biodiesel plants are using it.
 

ladporter:

i came across this great catalyst from BASF, a liquid that will not create any water when mixed with methanol,  Na-Methylate, sodium methylate.

commercial biodiesel plants are using it.

Huh. I thought Degussa was the only manufacturer of methylates. They offer both sodium and potassium species, and either granular solids or in solution of Methanol. It's a NASTY material to handle, and requires special storage (inert gas jacketed vessels).

If you search the site using "methylate" as a keyword, you'll find a lot of discussion. 

ebztz:

ladporter:

i came across this great catalyst from BASF, a liquid that will not create any water when mixed with methanol,  Na-Methylate, sodium methylate.

commercial biodiesel plants are using it.

Huh. I thought Degussa was the only manufacturer of methylates. They offer both sodium and potassium species, and either granular solids or in solution of Methanol. It's a NASTY material to handle, and requires special storage (inert gas jacketed vessels).

If you search the site using "methylate" as a keyword, you'll find a lot of discussion. 

ebztz

The three biggest suppliers of Sodium Methylate are Degussa, BASF and DuPont. I believe DuPont are the only one of those that actually supplies product manufactured in the USA (made by Inchem), BASF and Degussa manufacture all of theirs in Europe and then ship worldwide.

You are correct though it is nasty stuff which needs extra handling care than Sodium Hydroxide and Methanol.

Yes, you are correct in that these are "nasty stuff"  and few realize how dangerous they are:  Methanol is one of the most dangerous chemical.  Burns with barely visable flame.  Explosive. Permeates skin.   Caustic and methylate can melt ones skin in seconds.  While biodiesel is fun the process to make it borders on some of the most dangerous chemical processing (high pH, fire, inhalation, etc.).  I am giving it up and brewing my own beer and making some into ethanol for my car.

Now Billy, don't give up so quickly.  All you have to do is learn a little bit of safe lab practice to make BioDiesel.  On the other hand, you could do like I want to and make that beer, distill it and zeolyte dehydrate it to make 200 proof ethanol for your biodiesel reactors.

ladporter:

hi everyone:

 i came across this great catalyst from BASF, a liquid that will not create any water when mixed with methanol,  Na-Methylate, sodium methylate.

commercial biodiesel plants are using it.
 

Na-Methylate is also sodium methoxide. The reason it won't produce any water when combined with methanol is that it is made from combining sodium hydroxide with methanol (as we do), but removing the water produced, allowing more sodium methoxide to be created. I personally don't see it as being all that special - at least for homebrewers. Since homebrewers work with WVO, it's just simpler to work with solid alkali catalyst. IMO anyway.

Billy Whiskers:

Yes, you are correct in that these are "nasty stuff"  and few realize how dangerous they are:  Methanol is one of the most dangerous chemical.  Burns with barely visable flame.  Explosive. Permeates skin.   Caustic and methylate can melt ones skin in seconds.  While biodiesel is fun the process to make it borders on some of the most dangerous chemical processing (high pH, fire, inhalation, etc.).  I am giving it up and brewing my own beer and making some into ethanol for my car.

Making beer into ethanol? You're joking, right?

Beer is typically what, 3% ethanol?

Interstate Chemical is a Leading USA Manufacturer of Sodium Methylate.

www.interstatechemical.com