Tiny Biodiesel Reactors

Lee_in_KC writes "A professor of chemical engineering at Oregon State University developed a small reactor to directly convert vegetable oil to biodiesel. Goran Jovanovic reports his invention is approximately the size of a credit card. It pumps vegetable oil and alcohol through parallel channels to convert the oil into biodiesel almost instantly. Current mainstream methods to produce biodiesel take more than a day and also produces other byproducts which must be neutralized before disposal or use in other manufacturing processes."

Comments

I'm waiting.

[ScaryMonkey]

I'll be interested to see how much the oil companies pay for his patent so they can bury it for the next fifty years.

Cellular Reactions.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Essentially, the reactors, which can range in size from less than a square inch to several square inches, use tiny, parallel channels no larger in diameter than a human hair, to bring the alcohol and vegetable oil into contact with each other in the presence of a sodium hydroxide catalyst.

What results is not only a tiny stream of 100 percent biodiesel fuel, but also glycerin, the latter having uses in making soaps and even fossil fuel-free plastics.

The microreactors, each of which produces only a minute amount of biodiesel, are designed to be used with thousands of others of the same size in a single, integrated system."

Sounds like the mechanical equivalent of an organ.

Yeah, Yeah...come back when it works

[SpeedBump0619]

From TFA:

"If we're successful with this, nobody will ever make biodiesel any other way,"

So, what you are trying to say is that you haven't ever done it, but in *theory* it should be a phenomenal improvement over exiting methods of biodeisel production...

I'll be over here holding my breath.

Re:I'm waiting

[Cid Highwind]

There is a 100 mpg carburetor patent that an oil company is sitting on.

This story has been floating around since the 1950s, far longer than any patent term. Either EvilOilCo has a hundred-year patent to go with their hundren-mile-per-gallon car, or there never was such a device...

If Big Oil could make a 100 mpg car

[Ogemaniac]

they would immediately jump into the car business and make far more money that way than they could selling oil. Variations of this are demonstrated in every basic economics book. Quit spewing this ludicrious, repeatedly-refuted myth.

For example, let us assume this is the status quo:

1: Big Oil owns a patent for a 100 mpg car that can be produced at the same cost with the same features as a regular car

2: A "regular" car costs $20,000, gets 25 mpg, and is driven 100,000 miles (4000 gallons, lifetime) at $3/gallon

3: Big Oil has a 10% profit margin on gasoline, and Detroit/Japan have a 10% margin on regular cars

Now, here is the first question. How much would YOU, the average consumer, be willing to pay for a new BigOil brand car? Well, the total cost of car + gas of a regular car is $32000. So as long as a BigOil car costs less in total, you would buy it. Since it will have a gasoline cost of $3000, it stands to reason that you will choose a Big Oil car for any price up to $29000.

Now, where does Big Oil make more profits? The status quo or by selling BigOil cars? Well, in the status quo, they sell you $12000 worth of gas and keep $1200 after costs. Not bad! But what if they instead sell you a BigOil car? Well, the cost of producing a BigOil or regular car is $18,000. Yet they can sell it to you for $29000, an $11000 profit. They can then snatch $300 more on profits from the remaining gas they sell you, for a total of $11,300.

Now assuming Big Oil is greedy (a safe assumption), which do you think they would rather have? $1200 or $11300?

Myth refuted. Please move along.

Re:people,think about lost jobs

[toganet]

According to the US Economic Census, the Oil industry employs about 95,000 people inside the US. The US has lost 2.6 Million manufacturing jobs since 2001.

Gas stations, etc., would still need to exist -- they would just sell a different fuel.

Re:Whereas this is a troll...

[ThosLives]

Thank you! Finally, someone who realizes that the only way to get a 100 mpg vehicle is to build one that does not move very fast, cannot go up a hill, and is also otherwise not very useful. For instance, if you have a 100% efficient gasoline engine, and it's running gasoline with 114,300 kJ/gal energy content, and you have a nice low drag coefficient (Cd*A = (.3 x 2 m2) = .6 m2), you could get 121 mpg at 40 miles per hour on a flat road with no wind and no rolling resistance. Now, if you've got a good engine (30% efficient), you'll get 40 mpg with the same engine. Wow, look. That's what we've got today. Now, if you only want to go 25 mph, you can get 100 mpg...