"Appal Energy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: "I wouldn't bank on receipts for crude glycerin to make a business plan work. In house refining or conversion maybe."
That's what I'm being told, so I'm looking into products FROM glycerine that have a larger market and/or higher market value. Acrolein (which you don't approve of, but which forms the basis of manufacture of all the ubiquitous acrylic resins) is relatively easily obtained by fermentation. Other products involving glycerine (I'm concentrating on resins suitable for varnishes and paints, for reasons I won't bore you with) are: furfural (derivable from cellulose) and glycerin give a black condensation polymer (Gabillion, 1931) polymerisation of acrolein in presence of alkali gives a white resin soluble in alcohol, acetone and some hydrocarbons. [Sounds like a replacement for shellac in alcohol solution, but it would also have the same problems as shellac when used on tabletops and floors.] A similar process applies to the fatty aldehydes, derivable from the fatty acids. glycerine condenses with various fatty acids in the presence of castor oil to form Bakelite-like plastics which, however, have a wider range of colors including white. (Gabillion again, no further details). Lots of heat and pressure needed in this process, as for Bakelite. "Nothing like building an entire city just to make biodiesel, eh?" Integrated manufacturing is a sine qua non for making it work economically, at least here in the humid tropics. The trick is coming up with efficient, small plants, or better yet mobile ones. Continuous processing and multiple use equipment are requisite. Lots of work to do here, but also huge potential rewards for the first to come up with a workable system. On another topic: has anybody worked out how many gallons of diesel fuel it takes to transport a gallon of fuel to a remote service station? The answer, I imagine, would be in something like gallons per thousand gallons transported, per mile, or the like. It seems to me that petroleum fuel savings in the sticks should count more than fuel saved near the refinery, but I need to put numbers to it. Best, Marc de Piolenc Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Please do NOT send "unsubscribe" messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
