October 24, 2007 

The Technological University of the Philippines’ (TUP) Integrated Research and Training Center (IRTC) and biofuel producer Chemrez Technologies Inc. successfully extracted oil from locally grown jatropha plants to produce quality biodiesel.

“The Philippines is capable of producing biodiesel from jatropha that can pass international standards. What is more important to note is that we used seeds from the local jatropha variety,” engineer Philip Argamosa, IRTC director, said.

TUP bioengineers extracted the oil from the jatropha seeds while Chemrez was responsible for the esterification process to convert the jatropha crude oil to jatropha methyl ester, commonly known as jatropha biodiesel.

The properties of the jatropha based biodiesel produced was within the specifications in EN 14214 and ASTM D6751.

“Given that the jatropha based biodiesel passed European and American Biodiesel Standards, reluctance on the properties of jatropha as a biodiesel feedstock will now be scored out,“ PNOC-AFC president Peter Anthony Abaya said.

In a related development, Argamosa said the university had devised a jatropha seed expeller that can be used with relative ease by farmers for oil extraction.