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

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.

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...