Ken wrote: >Craig writes: > > >http://www.biobased.org/list2.php?storyid=2931 > > > >Interesting story on a new way to make BioD without a significant waste > >stream. > > >Actually, not new at all, and it still produces glycerine which must be >removed from the solvent somehow -- no alkali, it's true, but creating >the supercritical conditions is energy-intensive and basically impossible >on a small scale.
Definitely - though there are those who've proposed it, and even started tinkering with salvaged hydraulics stuff and so on to make a processor. Hm. We haven't heard from them recently. Hope they survived. Hope they gave up. This seems to be a derivative of Kusdiana and Saka's supercritical method. http://www.bioproducts-bioenergy.gov/pdfs/bcota/abstracts/19/z187.pdf http://bioproducts-bioenergy.gov/pdfs/bcota/abstracts/19/z191.pdf From what I can make out it's not being done anywhere in Japan. Personally (actually not just me, rather wide reservations have been expressed) I'm not very keen on the idea of sodium methoxide at 350 deg C at a pressure of 30 MPa (296.077 atmospheres, 2.176 tons/square inch). Not exactly something for the kitchen. Lab or industry, and I think I might move to the next town, industry consistently proving less competent than they'd have us believe. Low costs might evaporate once you'd satisfied the safety regs, short of really high bulk production perhaps. Sumitomo's method uses *only* 8 MPa and 240 degrees C, but it's still the same game. Interesting possibilities with acid-base at 100psi, but beyond that one's interest wans rapidly. Keith http://www.biobased.org/list2.php?storyid=2931 Biobased Information System Sumitomo Chemical Licensing Inexpensive 'Green' Process for Manufacturing Fatty Acid Oct 31, 2002 - The News Edge, Hoovers Online - Link to Story http://hoovnews.hoovers.com/fp.asp?layout=displaynews&doc_id=NR2002103 0670.2_8d7d0002359ea416 Sumitomo Chemical has developed a green, inexpensive process for manufacturing fatty acid methyl ester which is competitive with the established catalytic process. Vegetable seed oil, soybeans or other feedstocks are mixed with ethanol in a supercritical reactor to create a clean product with no reaction by-products. The conventional process, which uses caustic soda or other alkali, yields soapy by-products which have to be washed out, resulting in large volumes of water whose disposal is difficult. 'Supercritical' refers to a phase which exists at high temperatures and pressures, where liquid and gas phases combine to a single phase. The manufacturing process takes place above 8 MPa and 240 degrees C, where violent mixing of the constituents allows swift recombination into the final product. Fatty acid methyl ester is a feedstock for higher alcohol, used to make surfactants, and can also be burned as a 'biodiesel' fuel in place of regular diesel fuel. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Sell a Home for Top $ http://us.click.yahoo.com/RrPZMC/jTmEAA/jd3IAA/FGYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ 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/
