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Researchers tout do-it-yourself biodieselBy Larry Dreiling Farmer cooperatives and large corporations alike have been building biodiesel plants across the country with no end in sight. As of June 7, 148 plants across the country have been built, with a capacity of producing 1.39 billion gallons of biodiesel annually, according to the National Biodiesel Board. Another 96 plants with an estimated total capacity of 1.98 billion gallons annually are under construction. The benefits of biodiesel have been well documented. It's simple to use, biodegradable, nontoxic, and essentially free of sulfur and aromatics--the pollutants that cause smog and acid rain. While the industrial side of biodiesel production is booming, the mostly farm grown product has not seen much growth in on-the-farm production since the product's origins dating back to Rudolph Diesel's own tinkering with peanut oil in small batches and despite early boosters like George Washington Carver and Henry Ford. Researchers at the Lakewood, Colo.-based International Center for Appropriate and Sustainable Technology are out to change that. The mission of iCAST is to work with local partners to develop sustainable solutions to the infrastructure and economic development needs of underserved rural communities. Cropping system concept In this case, iCAST teamed up with Colorado State University Cooperative Extension to examine how farmers could use alternative crops in rotation with wheat to increase efficiencies on their land but to produce biodiesel for the farmer's own use. "We've been looking at wheat-based cropping systems. In that vein, we started about four years ago in collaboration with Blue Sun Biodiesel in testing oilseed crops," said Dr. Jerry Johnson, research scientist in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences and Extension crop production specialist at Colorado State University. "Under the dryland conditions that we've had the last few years it's been a tough row to hoe in terms of finding alternative crops we can get stands on and protect them from things like flea beetles. We've been working to develop insect and weed control packages and get to a point where you can adopt them." Even with the low yields Johnson's test crops have received during his research he said he still very encouraged in the results of research into no-till wheat-based cropping systems. "There is good reason for optimism," Johnson said at a recent field day sponsored by Colorado Wheat at Yuma, Colo. "We'd like to find an alternative crop that would either bring in some cash or be good for maybe making biodiesel, so you could have a wheat crop in the summer and then grow a spring oilseed crop that you'd plant in March, harvest in July, and if you have moisture, you could plant wheat again in the fall. "In that kind of scenario, we don't need very high yields to be able to make it economically viable. When we started looking at Indian brown mustard, spring canola and camelina, we thought we needed 1,500 to 1,600 pounds to the acre to make it work, but when we put pencil to paper, it was more like 700 pounds per acre." On-farm production ideas The more work Johnson and his CSU research team did on the subject, the more areas of research they began to explore. "It wound up that we asked for and received a grant for a model biodiesel reactor. Working with iCAST and the help of some senior engineering students at the Colorado School of Mines at Golden we looked at demystifying this process," Johnson said. "The hope is we can have an energy independent agricultural system here in Colorado. It's our dream and we're just in the first steps in terms of research about agronomics and variety development as well as development of the machinery." Towing a demonstration production unit on a small flatbed trailer to farm shows, crop plot tours and county fairs to tout the benefits of farm-produced biodiesel are Micah Allen, iCAST engineering project manager, and Raphael Shay, an iCAST intern, who is a graduate student in interdisciplinary studies from Renaissance College at the University of Nova Scotia. At the same wheat demonstration field day where Johnson spoke, Allen and Shay demonstrated how their farm-scale biodiesel production system works. The small mobile system, which Shay estimated cost about $5,000 to construct, consists of an expeller to separate oil from meal, a filter press to reduce any solid matter down to five microns and processing system consisting of a reactor, a settling tank, a washing system to purify the fuel, a final filter and a storage tank for finished fuel. Expellers, Shay said, generally extract oil from soybeans at about 14 percent oil by weight while sunflower, mustard, camelina and canola seed extracts at a rate of about 32 percent by weight. Soybeans net about 1.9 gallons of oil per every 100 pounds while the other seeds can net as much as 4.4 gallons of oil per 100 pounds. When sent through the expeller, the seed is crushed and oil is separated from meal. The meal is expelled as pellets. "There is a market for the pellets as livestock feed or you can use it to feed your own livestock," Shay said. Use of a catalyst Meanwhile the oil drips into an initial filter, though sometimes, a series of sedimentation tanks can be used before the oil is clear enough to be used in a biodiesel reactor. Next, a catalyst, like ordinary lye or sodium hydroxide is mixed with the oil and methanol in a stir tank called a reactor. One gallon of oil mixed with about a quart of catalyst and methanol will yield about .85 gallon of biodiesel. "When you mix the vegetable oil into the catalyst with methanol you have a chemical reaction. There are three chemical chains in the oil along with another chain, that of glycerol," Shay said. "It's mixed to break off the glycerol chain and replace it with a methanol chain. After it's mixed, it's moved into a settling tank where glycerol, the main component in soap, is separated from the biodiesel." Glycerol can be used in compost, and can be burned at high temperatures or sold in the glycerol market for the manufacturing of soap and other products. The biodiesel is then sent into a washing system. In the case of the iCAST system, water is pushed through the biodiesel three times, separating the soapy water from the fuel. "You can take the soapy water and use it on your fields as a natural insecticide. For washing, it's about 50 percent water to 50 percent biodiesel. After washing the fuel is placed through another screening filter and the finished biodiesel is placed in a holding tank, ready to use. "You can even skip making biodiesel and just use straight vegetable oil, or SVO, in your engine," he said. "Heated SVO works best in indirect injection engines. Of course, it doesn't work when it's cold. It will gel in your engine." Since using a cold diesel car or a tractor with a tank of gelled biodiesel won't work, Shay said there's two ways to work around that--besides not drive, of course. "There are many and various chemicals to lower the temperature of the SVO. Another is to add biodiesel to lower the temperature," Shay said. "Another method you can use is the two-tank method. You can start your engine on straight diesel and then wait for it to warm up. "You can then use a heating system that can be installed where your exhaust is run through heating tubes inside your fuel tank. You run it until the fuel gets up to temperature and then you can flip a switch when it's warm and run your car or tractor on biodiesel." Sustainability concept Another blessing--and curse-- about biodiesel is its high detergent content. Unless a vehicle has always been driven on biodiesel, it will clean the fuel lines so well that fuel filters must be changed often at the start of using biodiesel since filters will become clogged with buildup from petroleum based product. "You'll have to change fuel filters often at first," Shay said "After that, you should be fine." The philosophy iCAST is pushing, of getting producers to grow oilseed crops in their rotations and make their own biodiesel and the by-products from that production, is designed to improve the environment as well strengthen farm operations through the development of sustainable production systems. "There are many companies that build this equipment and that's where iCAST comes in. They can actually set up a process for producers to buy the equipment to make their own biodiesel," Johnson said. Shay expects most producers to build larger units than the mobile unit he and Allen are towing across the country. It takes six hours to make a batch of biodiesel, no matter what size of unit. In the case of the portable unit, only four gallons of biodiesel can be made. The iCAST team has shopped for the equipment and found that expellers can run from $1,000 to $8,000, filter presses from $650 to $2,000 and reactor kits from $3,000 to $7,000, depending on capacities. Top-of-the-line units can produce 175 gallons per batch. The iCAST Website offers ways to learn more about how to develop an on-the-farm biodiesel production unit as well as contacts on biodiesel production equipment. For further information, visit www.icastusa.com or call (303) 462-4100. Larry Dreiling can be reached by phone at 785-628-1117 or by e-mail at ldreiling@aol.com. B 1 8/20/07 4 Star NE Date: 8/15/07
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