Plastic and Fuel That Grow On Trees

Tim Hanlon writes "Biofuels continue to lead the field in the search for a renewable, environmentally friendly replacement for crude oil. Besides its use in the transport industry, crude oil is also used to produce conventional plastics and chemical products such as fertilizers and solvents. Now chemists have learned how to convert plant biomass directly into a chemical building block that can be used to produce not only fuel, but also plastics, polyester, and industrial chemicals, cheaply and efficiently."

Comments

Diesel that grows in trees

[mangu]

Copaiba is a tree from the Amazon region that gives diesel oil. Drill a hole in the tree and pour the oil that comes out in your tank, that is all you need to do. Typical yield is 40 liter per tree every year.

Re:Diesel that grows in trees

[bzzfzz]

Like any other vegetable oil, the oil derived from Copiaba has to be processed using Transesterification to be useful as a fuel. Though the process is not difficult or costly, there's more to it than just dumping the raw oil in your fuel tank.

Re:cheap?

[ericrost]

From TFA:

Now chemists have learned how to convert plant biomass directly into a chemical building block that can not only be used to produce fuel, but also plastics, polyester and industrial chemicals cheaply and efficiently.

It says so right in TFA that's "where the fuck it says" it.

No conversion needed

[mangu]

It still needs to be converted to biodiesel to be safe for long-term use in a diesel engine

Googling for more data on this, I found at least one article that claims otherwise: "... copaiba (Copaifera Langsdorfii) has raised the possibility of eliminating even the processing step. The copaiba produces at least 20-30 liters of oil every six months -- and this oil is a mixture of 15-carbon hydrocarbons which can be used directly to power a diesel engine"