Biodiesel

From Phyco.org

Biodiesel is a non-toxic fuel for compression-ignition engines, most notably the diesel engine, that is created from vegetable oil.

This article provides an overview of biodiesel production from algae.

[edit] Production

It's commonly believed that algae, of which certain species can have more than 50% oil content, is the most efficient cultivatable organism to create biodiesel feedstock per unit of land area. The size of an algae farm or cultivation apparatus can be further reduced by using acrylic "glow plates" to distribute sunlight at 1/10th its intensity, as algae only take advantage of 10% of the sunlight that strikes its chloroplasts. The advantage of this being that ten times more algae can be grown with the available sunlight, if the hydroponic elements of the system are stacked in the same area.
This technique has been used by GreenFuel Technologies Corporation with technology from Sunlight Direct.

See: Technologies

[edit] External links

• http://www.biodiesel.org/ - The National Biodiesel Board; Represents US agricultural industry as well as R&D for the production and distribution of biodiesel.
• http://www.biodieselcommunity.org/ - The Collaborative Biodiesel Tutorial; A resource for creating biodiesel independently.