Ethical Dilemma Say Researchers

14 April 2011

Second generation biofuels that use waste as a feedstocks could be the answer to ‘unethical practices’ that are encouraged by current policies on biofuels, according a report by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics.

The UK based Nuffield Council on Bioethics examines ethical issues raised by new developments in biology and medicine, and in 2009 established a working party to examine the ethical issues raised by biofuels. The report – Biofuels: ethical issues – has been published recently following an 18 month inquiry.

According to the report policies such as the European Renewable Energy Directive (RED) are particularly weak when it comes to protecting the environment, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and avoiding human rights violations in developing countries.

Critically, the report also claims that such policies include few incentives for the development of new biofuel technologies that could help avoid such problems.

“Biofuels are one of the only renewable alternatives we have for transport fuels such as petrol and diesel, but current policies and targets that encourage their uptake have backfired badly,” said Professor Joyce Tait, who led the inquiry.

Tait cites the rapid expansion of biofuels production in the developing world as a cause of deforestation and displacement of indigenous people, and adds that a more sophisticated strategy that considers the wider consequences of biofuel production is needed.

However, the report goes on to say that research into a second generation of biofuels has the potential to provide feedstocks that:

• Do not compete with food
• Have a high energy yield with low inputs of water, land and fertiliser etc.
• Do not negatively affect the environment or local populations
• Can be produced in sufficient quantities to allow economically viable biofuels production.

New research

1. Biofuels development should not be at the expense of human rights
2. Biofuels should be environmentally sustainable
3. Biofuels should contribute to a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions
4. Biofuels should adhere to fair trade principles
5. Costs and benefits of biofuels should be distributed in an equitable way.

Joule Unlimited is located in Kendall Square, Cambridge, among a stretch of older buildings dubbed “Life Sciences Square” in the neighborhood of many pharmaceutical companies. Having an infrastructure, such as third-party companies to do DNA sequencing, around genetic engineering helps the company rapidly identify promising strains.

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

Biodiesel Co-Products

Science (Oct. 9, 2007) — Biofuel research isn’t just a matter of finding the right type of biomass—corn grain, soybean oil, animal fat, wood or other material—and converting it into fuel. Scientists must also find environmentally and economically sound uses for the by-products of biofuel production. Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists Brian Kerr and William Dozier have done just that.

Current biodiesel supplies are often made from the triglycerides, or fat, found in soybean oil. But processing biodiesel from soybean oil also yields crude glycerin, also known as glycerol, which has a purity level of about 85 percent. It also contains small amounts of salt, methanol and free fatty acids. If glycerol is refined to 99 percent purity, it can be used in many products, including pharmaceuticals, foods, drinks, cosmetics and toiletries.

Kerr, Dozier and Iowa State University colleague Kristjan Bregendahl studied whether crude glycerin could be used to supplement the feed of laying hens, broilers and swine. They found that crude glycerin provided a supply of caloric energy that equaled or exceeded the caloric energy available in corn grain. Feeds containing up to 10 percent glycerin had little to no adverse effect on laying hen egg production or broiler body weight gain. Pig body weight gain, carcass composition and meat quality also showed little to no adverse change after equivalent levels of crude glycerin were added to their feed.

Safe levels for salt, methanol and free fatty acids in crude glycerin consumed by nonruminant livestock still need to be determined. But as corn grain ethanol production and conversion soar, corn grain supplies for livestock feed are decreasing. Using crude glycerin to supplement feed supplies could provide livestock producers with a readily available, inexpensive and energy- packed alternative to corn grain.

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On Crude ‘Oil’ From Pig Manure

Science (June 17, 2008) — After a close examination of crude oil made from pig manure, chemists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are certain about a number of things. Most obviously, “This stuff smells worse than manure,” says NIST chemist Tom Bruno.

But a job’s a job, so the NIST team has developed the first detailed chemical analysis revealing what processing is needed to transform pig manure crude oil into fuel for vehicles or heating. Mass production of this type of biofuel could help consume a waste product overflowing at U.S. farms, and possibly enable cutbacks in the nation’s petroleum use and imports. But, according to a new NIST paper, pig manure crude will require a lot of refining.

The ersatz oil used in the NIST analyses was provided by engineer Yuanhui Zhang of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Zhang developed a system using heat and pressure to transform organic compounds such as manure into oil.

As described in the new paper, Bruno and colleagues determined that the pig manure crude contains at least 83 major compounds, including many components that would need to be removed, such as about 15 percent water by volume, sulfur that otherwise could end up as pollution in vehicle exhaust, and lots of char waste containing heavy metals, including iron, zinc, silver, cobalt, chromium, lanthanum, scandium, tungsten and minute amounts of gold and hafnium. Whatever the pigs eat, from dirt to nutritional supplements, ends up in the oil.

While the thick black liquid may look like its petroleum-based counterparts, the NIST study shows that looks can be deceiving. “The fact that pig manure crude oil contains a lot of water is unfavorable. They would need to get the water out,” Bruno says.

The measurements were made with a new NIST test method and apparatus, the advanced distillation curve, which provides highly detailed and accurate data on the makeup and performance of complex fluids. A distillation curve charts the percentage of the total mixture that evaporates as a sample is slowly heated. Because the different components of a complex mixture typically have different boiling points, a distillation curve gives a good measure of the relative amount of each component in the mixture. NIST chemists enhanced the traditional technique by improving precision and control of temperature measurements and adding the capability to analyze the chemical composition of each boiling fraction using a variety of advanced methods.

NIST researchers analyzed the graphite-like char remaining after the distillation by bombarding it with neutrons, a non-destructive way of identifying the types and amounts of elements present. Two complementary neutron methods detected the heavy metals listed above.

Bruno and colleagues currently spend much of their time analyzing military jet fuels and are not planning a major foray into pig manure. But Bruno concedes that the effort may have a payoff. “Who knows, it might help decrease the nuisance of manure piles.”

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Science (Aug. 22, 2009) — High-rate digestion with microfiltration is state-of-the-art in large sewage plants. It effectively removes accumulated sludge and produces biogas to generate energy. A study now reveals that even small plants can benefit from this process.

Sewage plants remove organic matter from wastewater. If the accumulating sludge decays, biogas is generated as a by-product. However, only 1156 of the 10,200 sewage plants in Germany have a digestion tank. Smaller operations, especially, baulk at the costs of a new digestion tank. Instead, they enrich the sludge with oxygen in the existing activation basin, and stabilize it.

“Activation basins require a lot of electricity. At the same time, enormous energy potential is lost, since no biogas is produced,” says Dr. Brigitte Kempter-Regel of the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB in Stuttgart. “A sewage plant eats up more electricity in the municipalities than their hospitals do.”

In a cost-benefit-study Dr. Kempter-Regel has shown that it also pays small sewage plants to transfer to more energy-efficient processes – even if they have to invest in a sludge digestion unit. “Based on a sewage plant for 28,000 inhabitants, we calculate that the plant can reduce its annual waste management costs from 225,000 euros by as much as 170,000 euros if sludge is decayed in a high-rate digestion unit with microfiltration, as opposed to treating it aerobically,” she says.

This process was developed at IGB and is much more effective than conventional digestion. Instead of the usual 30 to 50 days, sludge only remains in the tower for five to seven days. Around 60 percent of the organic matter is converted into biogas – the spoil is approximately a third more than in the traditional digestion process. The biogas obtained can be used to operate the plant, which, in the case study, would cut energy costs by at least 70,000 euros each year. High-rate digestion has the added advantage of producing less residual sludge needing disposal.

“This saves the operator another 100,000 euros,” says Kempter-Regel. In addition to high energy prices, budgets are also being hit hard by increasing waste management costs. The use of residual sludge in agriculture is controversial, and slurry can no longer be disposed of on landfills; burning the sludge is a very expensive alternative. So an effective reduction of sludge through digestion pays off. Even small sewage plants have already followed the recommendation of the Stuttgart Institute and converted to the high-rate digestion process.

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Non-Food Source for

Biodiesel Production

Science (Sep. 17, 2010) — In the quest for alternatives to soybeans, palm, and other edible oilseed plants as sources for biodiesel production, enter an unlikely new candidate: A fungus, or mold, that produces and socks away large amounts of oils that are suitable for low-cost, eco-friendly biodiesel.

That’s the topic of a study in ACS’ journal Energy & Fuels.

Victoriano Garre and colleagues point out that manufacturers usually produce biodiesel fuel from plant oils — such as rapeseed, palm, and soy. However, expanded production from those sources could foster shortages that mean rising food prices. In addition, oilseeds require scare farmland, and costly fertilizers and pesticides. To meet growing demand for biodiesel fuel, scientists are looking for oil sources other than plants. Microorganisms such as fungi, which take little space to grow, are ideal candidates. But scientists first must find fungi that produce larger amounts of oil.

In the study, scientists describe a process for converting oil from an abundant producer called Mucor circinelloides into biodiesel without even extracting oil from the growth cultures. The resulting fungus-based biodiesel meets commercial specifications in the United States and Europe and production could be scaled to commercial levels, they note.

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from Butter

Science (July 28, 2010) — The search for new raw materials for making biodiesel fuel has led scientists to an unlikely farm product — butter.

In a new study in ACS’ bi-weekly Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, they report that butter could be used as an eco-friendly feedstock, or raw material, for making diesel fuel.

Michael Haas and colleagues cite rising global demand for biodiesel, and the desire to expand the feedstock base, as motivating factors for their research. The United States alone has committed to producing 36 billion gallons of biofuel by 2022, a major increase from the current annual production level of about 11 billion gallons. Most of that was ethanol. Biodiesel production, now approaching 1 billion gallons annually in the U.S., is also slated to increase.

As researchers seek additional and affordable feedstocks for biodiesel production, these scientists turned to butter, one billion pounds of which are produced annually. Could surplus, spoiled, or nonfood-grade butter be used to make biodiesel at competitive prices?

In an effort to find out, the scientists recovered the fat from a quarter-ton of butter and converted it into the fatty acid esters that constitute biodiesel. They found that the resulting material met all but one of the official test standards for biodiesel. The study concluded that with further purification or by blending with biodiesel from other feedstocks butter biodiesel could add to the supply of biobased fuel for diesel engines.

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To Fuel Cars And Trucks

Science (July 30, 2009) — Call it a “shrimp cocktail” for your fuel tank. Scientists in China are reporting development of a catalyst made from shrimp shells that could transform production of biodiesel fuel into a faster, less expensive, and more environmentally friendly process.

Xinsheng Zheng and colleagues note that an energy-hungry world, concerned about global warming, increasingly puts its future fuel hopes on renewable fuels like biodiesel. Today’s biodiesel production processes, however, require catalysts to speed up the chemical reactions that transform soybean, canola, and other plant oils into diesel fuel. Traditional catalysts cannot be reused and must be neutralized with large amounts of water — another increasingly scarce resource — leaving behind large amounts of polluted wastewater.

The researchers describe development of a new catalyst produced from shrimp shells. In laboratory tests, the shrimp shell catalysts converted canola oil to biodiesel (89 percent conversion in three hours) faster and more efficiently than some conventional catalysts. The new catalysts also can be reused and the process minimizes waste production and pollution, the scientists note.

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