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Renewable energy also needs to be sustainable energy
By Doug Rich
The buzzword these days is sustainability. Every company with a product to sell is looking for ways to claim its share of the sustainability market. Research being conducted at the University of Kansas could have everyone chasing the biodiesel industry when it comes to sustainability. William "Bill" Ayres, business manager for the biomass division at R3 Sciences, has an idea that could dramatically increase the sustainability of the biodiesel industry. Ayres has been involved with biodiesel since 1990 and helped form the National Biodiesel Board. "I did some research several years back and took some soybean oil and soy biodiesel, ran them through a catalytic reformer and converted them to hydrogen," Ayres said. "I did it just to show that it could be done." The hydrogen was then used in short fuel cell demonstration runs. Ayres said the problem was that both of these feedstocks are expensive. In recent years he started looking at using crude glycerin as an alternative feed stock. Crude glycerin Crude glycerin is a co-product of the biodiesel production process. When this country began to produce large amounts of biodiesel a few years ago, the supply of glycerin rose right along with the supply of biodiesel. "The problem was what to do with the glycerin fraction," Ayres said. "For every 10 pounds of biodiesel we make, one pound of glycerin is produced." As the volume of glycerin became larger, the price for glycerin dropped dramatically. As a co-product it is not nearly as valuable as it was when the push for more biodiesel fuel began. "I thought it would be advantageous to look at taking the glycerin that is produced, convert it to a synthesis gas (carbon monoxide and hydrogen) and run an engine-generator set to produce electricity and heat for the biodiesel plant," Ayres said. Research financed by the Kansas Soybean Commission and R3 Sciences on this concept is being done by the Mechanical and Chemical Engineering Departments at the University of Kansas. "We are taking the glycerin, heating it up, and breaking it apart in a reformer." Ayres said. "When we have carbon monoxide and hydrogen, we can burn it in an engine just like burning natural gas." This is exactly what Chris Depcik, Ph.D., assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering at KU, and his graduate students are doing right now. R3 Sciences donated an engine generator set to KU for this research project. In their setup the hydrogen rich synthetic gas goes directly into a Chevrolet 350 small-block V8 engine where it is burned to power a 30 KW generator attached to the engine. "The end goal of the project is to basically use the glycerin from the production of biodiesel to power the biodiesel production process with a value added to the co-product," Depcik said. Depcik said to imagine this unit sitting on the outside of a biodiesel production plant where there is basically a free supply of glycerin. You produce electricity and heat to power the plant. The size of the engine-generator set would depend on the size of the biodiesel plant. "My students have been busy getting the engine in shape, getting it running, and updating the system so that it is more repeatable and adding places for temperature and pressure gauges for more data acquisition," Depcik said. At this point the engine-generator set is up and running. Depcik said they start it on propane so they can get the reformer hot, and then the glycerin is added. When all the data collection systems are ready and the engine-generator set is running smoothly, Depcik said they will be able to dynamically change the spark timing based on the glycerin flow rate to optimize the system for maximum power using the minimum amount of glycerin. "Understanding the system well enough to get it to that point has been a lot of hard work," Depcik said. Questions One of the questions Depcik and his students hope to answer is how pure does the glycerin need to be for this system to operate efficiently. If it needs to be refined, then that adds cost. "That is the exciting part of research, finding out what can and can not be done," Depcik said. "But we believe it can be done." The glycerin for the research project is provided by Susan Williams, Ph.D., associate professor in the Chemical and Petroleum Engineering Department. Her lab has two biodiesel reactors that can refine up to 120 gallons of pure biodiesel every week. Williams said they use cooking oil from dining services on campus and from locations around Lawrence, Kan., such as Local Burger and Johnny's Tavern. Depcik said one of the great things about this research project has been the cooperation between the mechanical and chemical engineering departments. As part of the KU Biodiesel Initiative, Williams said they are using the synthesis gas to assist or enhance combustion in a diesel engine. "We are looking at multiple areas to figure out what will have the best overall impact in terms of economics and environmental benefits," Williams said. Most of the biodiesel produced on campus is being used in off-road applications like lawn mowers and construction equipment. Williams said they have done some preliminary testing with buses on campus. "Our ultimate goal is to create a biodiesel blend that mimics ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel that fits seamlessly into the infrastructure of the pipelines, the infrastructure of the vehicle and can be produced locally," Depcik said. Next step Ayres said his idea could be taken to the next step, which would be to take that synthesis gas stream and convert it to methanol. "When we make biodiesel, we mix methanol alcohol with soybean oil to make the methyl ester, which is biodiesel," Ayres said. "Now we could have one of the primary ingredients for biodiesel made in-house." This would not only be a major benefit for biodiesel plants, but Ayres said it is a plus from a renewable energy standpoint since almost all of the methanol today is made from natural gas, a non-renewable resource. Ayres said nearly all of the methanol we use in this country is imported, so we are taking a non-renewable resource like natural gas to make methanol and shipping it long distances into the U.S. for use in lot of industries like biodiesel production. "As we move forward we can look at using the synthesis gas to make methanol at the biodiesel plant," Ayres said. "I think from an economic standpoint, if you have glycerin, the most economically feasible thing would be to make methanol at the plant because there is no freight or marketing to do." Producing an environmentally friendly fuel like biodiesel and then using the co-products to support the production process is a sustainable system worth researching. Doug Rich can be reached by phone at 785-749-5304 or by email at richhpj@aol.com. pull quotes: "The problem was what to do with the glycerin fraction," Ayres said. "Our ultimate goal is to create a biodiesel blend that mimics ultra low sulfur fuel," Depcik said.
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