Renewable Fuels – How Biofuel Works
Biofuels refer to fuels that are made from dead organic material just like fossil fuels, however, biofuels are made from renewable resources such as animal waste, corn, wood, and even grass and are considered an alternative energy source to traditional fossil fuels. Biofuels have become increasingly popular over the past five years due to the reduction in cost to create the fuel from the organic material when compared with the negatives of cost and pollution realized from the use of traditional fossil fuels.
How Are Biofuels Made?
Biofuels are made from plant or animal material that are processed from dead material. The process can entail trapping methane gas as it escapes decomposing material or can be similar to that used when extracting ethanol from corn. The carbon contained in the organic material has to be extracted and then refined in order to be used to generate energy. Biodiesel is created from a process using chemical reaction with fats with a catalyst added to the solution such as sodium hydroxide. The end result is a mixture that creates esters which are used as biodiesel. Some biofuels are created through the use of the fermentation process to create bioethers from soybeans and rapeseed.
How Are Biofuels Used?
Just like a traditional fossil fuel, once a biofuel is extracted, it is used in internal combustion engines. Existing diesel engines can be run on biofuels which burn more efficiently than traditional diesel fuel. Some biofuels require turbine or engine modifications due to burning cleaner and hotter than traditional fuel. Soy beans and corn are two of the more popular organic products used to produce ethanol used in internal combustion engines today.
What Are Second Generation BioFuels?
Second generation biofuels refers to using non-food crops to produce renewable energy sources. Some of these options include using wheat and corn stalks, wood, and special crops such as miscanthus to create biomass that can then be converted to liquid fuel. There is significant development and research ongoing in this field in order to find a cheaper alternative to corn and soy for producing fuel.
What Are Third Generation BioFuels?
Third generation biofuels refer to using algae to produce bio fuel. Ongoing experimentation is still being conducted at the time of this writing, but algae are considered to have the potential to be able to produce up to 30 times the yield per acre that soybeans and corn can produce. Algae is relatively easy to grow when compared to soy and corn, however, the extraction process to remove the algae oil is still significantly more expensive and difficult to accomplish. Another approach that is being taken with algae is to extract the naturally produced ethanol from the algae without killing the organism in order to produce fuel.