Indian scientists develop room-temperature biodiesel process

Wired reports that Indian scientists have developed a new process for producing biodiesel. The process, using fungi, creates biodiesel at room temperature.

Instead of mixing the ingredients and heating them for hours, the chemical engineers pass sunflower oil and methanol through a bed of pellets made from fungal spores. An enzyme produced by the fungus does the work — making biodiesel with impressive efficiency.

Last Monday, Ravichandra Potumarthi showed off his work during a poster session at the International Conference on Bioengineering and Nanotechnology. After returning to his lab in Hyderabad, he was able to send out some pictures of his experimental reactor (shown on right) and the fungal pellets.

Typically, biodiesel is made by mixing methanol with lye and vegetable oil and then heating the brew for several hours. This bonds the methanol to the oils to produce energetic molecules called esters.

The potential of affordable, room temperature biodiesel is exciting news. Previously, the only known process for creating biodiesel without adding heat was through expensive enzymes that made biodiesel production less economically viable. The use of heat in biodiesel production has been the subject of several experimental solutions, such as using recaptured steam. This technology, if commercially reproducible, looks like the simplest process yet for reducing both the carbon cost and the actual cost of producing biodiesel.

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