What is Biodiesel?
Biodiesel is a nontoxic, biodegradable replacement for petroleum diesel. Biodiesel is made from vegetable oil. The process of producing biodiesel is called transesterification whereby the ester chains in the vegetable oil are separated from the glycerine. This is achieved by replacing each molecule of glycerine with three molecules of methanol, or transesterifying the neutral glycerides into Methyl Ester. Biodiesel is also commonly known as Fatty Acid Methyl Ester.
Although biodiesel contains a similar number of BTUs as petroleum diesel the chains are oxygenated and have a higher flash point. This makes biodiesel a much cleaner burning fuel while being safer to handle and store than petroleum diesel. There is no trade-off in the change from fossil diesel to Biodiesel.
In fact, the direct benefits associated with the use of biodiesel in different blend percentages with petroleum diesel, include:
- increasing the fuel's cetane and lubricity for improved engine life
- reducing substantially the emissions profile including CO, CO2, SO2 particulate matter (PM) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs)
- helping to clean injectors, fuel pumps and fuel lines.
In addition, biodiesel is:
- non-toxic (its toxicity is less than 10% of that for ordinary table salt)
- biodegradable (degrades in about the same time as sugar)
- essentially free of sulfur and carcinogenic benzene
- derived from renewable resources which don't add significantly to the greenhouse gas accumulation associated with petroleum-derived fuels.
These benefits occur while requiring virtually no engine modifications or costly infrastructural additions.
The beneficial impact of this change over from highly polluting fossil fuel to clean biofuels on the overall CO2 emissions and global warming, plus the benefits to human health in major cities all over the world is inestimable.
