Robert W. Smith

Term Paper Fall ‘06

Bioscience Technologies

Biofuels

Background/History

Biofuels are the fuels of the future. They are less damaging to the environment, even though they are less cost efficient than the oil and petroleum fuels that our society currently relies on. But the fact of the matter is that when we run out of those fossil fuels, then we will have to rely on biofuels. Biofuels are basically any fuel source that is created from some form of organic product, or organism. They can be ethanol created from the stalks of corn, or hydrogen based engines.

According to most scientific communities, Biofuels are derived from biomass, which can be consider any large amount of living organisms, or their byproducts. An example might be cow manure, or corn. Biomass happens to be an expendable source or fuel, due to the fact that it can be grown again, or renewed extremely easily, just by growing a new stock of the organism that you had created your fuel out of. Unlike the sources that biofuels are created from, we only have a limited amount of coal, oil, or petroleum.

In the early days of the engine that ran using combustion, its inventor, Nikolaus August Otto the German scientist, had a thought of running the engine on Ethanol. This was the first time that anyone had conceived anything having to do with biofuels. Another German scientist, Rudolf Diesel, had thought about using peanut oil around the same time as Nikolaus had thought about using ethanol as an alternative fuel source. In the early 1900’s, between 1903 and 1926, the Henry Ford Model T used Ethanol as its fuel.

Unfortunately, this stroke of luck for biofuels ended when they discovered that crude oil was much cheaper to drill, and easier to process than Ethanol was. In Germany, during World War II, they used a blend of gasoline with alcohol-fermented potatoes called Reichskraftsprit. Also, in Britain, the company named Distillers Company Ltd created a substance they called Discol by mixing grain alcohol with petroleum, and then sold it to a place in Cleveland.

Once World War II was over, the oil industry began to boom in the Middle East. This took the light off of biofuels for a long time due to the inexpensive prices that the oil companies in the Middle East were offering. In 1973 and 1979, when there was a sudden thought that the world’s oil supply would only last 15 years longer, the light on biofuels was lit once again. Governments began to pay more money to increase the research done on biofuels, and how to decrease their costs, and make them a more cost efficient fuel source than Oil happened to be.

In 1986 though, oil prices dropped rapidly, and the research on biofuels was slowed down once more. Finally now, in the year 2000, oil prices have begun to steadily increase, allowing governments more reasons to work on researching biofuels, so as to help delay the greenhouse effect that our gas emissions were having on the earth, as well as us reaching a potential height in our production of oil.

Ethanol as an Alternative Fuel Source

One of the main biofuel alternatives to oil that everyone hears about is Ethanol. The combination of gasoline and ethanol will reduce the hazards to the environment, as well as lessen our need for petroleum based fuels, granted there will still be a little bit of a percentage of petroleum within the substance. It may not be very cost efficient yet, but that is what they are researching right now, to make it more cost efficient than the petroleum and oil products that we are relying upon for the time being.

There are a variety of feedstock that ethanol can be derived and converted from. Some of the more common ones are sugar cane, miscanthus, sugar beet, grain sorghum, barley, hemp, potatoes, sweet potatoes, sunflower, molasses, skim milk, corn, grain, wood, paper, straw, and cellulose waste. They are currently converting sugarcane, corn, and sugar beets to make ethanol at the moment. According to sources, it is not economically feasible yet to convert ethanol from cellulose feedstock yet, but it will be in the future.

For the conversion of corn into ethanol, they have to follow a specific procedure. First they refine the corn into starch, and then they use hydrolysis on the starch, and turn it into glucose. Next, they use yeast fermentation, then distill it, and after that they dehydrate it, which is required to blend the ethanol with gasoline. It is also an option to denature it to make it a more pure substance. In order for ethanol to be used, the water portion of it must be eliminated, thus the need for distillation.

In the process of fermentation uses microorganisms to create ethanol from the starch of corn after it has been hydrolyzed into glucose. Basically, the microorganisms take in the glucose, and begin to go through a process called hydrolysis, which breaks the glucose down, releasing energy for them to stay alive, but also releasing other products, one of which can result to be ethanol in the right conditions. Fermentation can also commonly produce lactic acid, glycerol, and acetic acid. The most common microorganism used in the fermentation of glucose to create ethanol is yeast.

In order to get ethanol to 95-99 percent purity, you need to distill it after you have fermented it. Basically distillation is when you cause the substance to evaporate, and then condense again, leaving all of the water behind, due to the fact that ethanol will evaporate quicker than the water. Granted, it is not possible to get a hundred percent ethanol from this, it will get you an extremely high percentage.

Using ethanol as a fuel source at this time is not entirely economically feasible. It is not as cost efficient as creating petroleum and oil products, which is why it is not used as a primary fuel source yet. But there are some good things about the use of ethanol. When it comes to atmospheric pollution, the use of ethanol as a fuel source is extremely clean. When combusted, the only products that it creates are carbon dioxide and water. Since we have so much of a dependence on oil though, we are unable to make full use of this clean product. Also, another economical problem with it is the cost efficiency as previously mentioned. It takes us more time, as well as money to create a fuel based off of ethanol, than to create a fuel based off of oil and petroleum.

Microbial Fuel Cells as an Alternative Fuel Source

Microbial fuel sources, or fuel cells, use bacteria to convert sugar into energy, normally electricity. They normally use chemicals, such as sugars or glucose to create the electrical energy needed to run a car. They are still being researched, and the power output is extremely small, therefore they are not commercially available yet. There are two main types of microbial fuel cells. These are the Mediator Microbial Fuel Cell, and the Mediator-less Microbial Fuel Cell.

The Mediator Microbial Fuel Cell uses a mediator, such as thionine, or methyl viologen to help with the electron transfer, since most bacteria are not electrochemically active. Unfortunately, most of the mediators are very expensive, and highly toxic to humans. The Mediator-less Microbial Fuel Cell does not require a mediator to help the bacteria transfer their electrons to the electrodes. This is because they have found bacteria that are electrochemically active, and can transfer electrons themselves.

Microbial Fuel Cells have a variety of uses. The main one being power generation. Since they have the potential to create electricity, one might be able to use a Microbial Fuel Cell to run a car, pacemaker, or anything else that relies on some form of electricity. They can also be used in biosensors and testing wastewater, due to the fact that wastewater is used as the fuel in the Microbial Fuel Cell.

The first time a Microbial Fuel Cell was even thought about was in the early 1900’s. A scientist named M. C. Potter began working on the subject in 1912. He was a professor of Botany, and ended up creating electricity by using cells. This was not a big hit in the bioscience community, until a man named Barnet Cohen did more research in 1931. This brought more light onto the subject, but because they could not generate mounds of energy out of it, the majority of the scientific community lost interest. It is only because of scientists like Suzuki that have kept this form of research as an Alternative Fuel Source alive to this day.

Recovery from Waste and Waste Management

Recovery from Waste, and Waste Management is how we recycle the products that we use to create more of a product based off of those products. Waste Management involves collecting waste, transporting it to a Waste Management center, processing the waste, and then deciding whether the waste can be recycled, or disposed of. Depending on the outcome, they may be able to recycle things such as aluminum cans, to create more aluminum cans out of the recycled aluminum. According to the most scientific communities, the three R’s of Waste Management are Reduce, Recycle, Reuse.

Waste products can make an excellent energy source. Resource recovery is what we use to recover the resources that we can use to create energy. Whether it is a machine picking through garbage, identifying items that can be used to create energy, or a human sifting through the garbage to grab things that can be reused, they are both called resource recovery.

There are several ways of waster treatment and management. A landfill is something they use to just put trash. After a garbage truck has crushed, and composted the trash, this is where they transport it to most times, is the nearest landfill. Landfills are extremely unclean, as well as not a good way to dispose of garbage, because all it is doing is just sitting there, rotting away. Incineration is another technique of waste management. It is the process or destroying waste though burning it. Then there is also composting and anaerobic digestion, which will lead into the next topic, Mechanical Biological Treatment.

Mechanical Biological Treatment, or MBT, is another way to sort through waste, and then treat it. The mechanical portion sorts through the waste, removing plastics metals and glasses, and then sends the rest of the waste to the biological treatment center. This is where they compost the other trash, by using anaerobic digestion with bacteria. This type of digestion will breakdown the biodegradable materials, and treats them without having to use fossil fuels to incinerate them.

As for the glass, plastic, and metal, they can then be used to create new materials. One household item that has been recycled, and turned back into a household item happens to be beer cans, or soda cans. They take old aluminum cans, crush them, and then melt them down. Once melted down they will then proceed to separate the paint from them, and solidify the aluminum. Once that is done, they can then send the aluminum to the can producers, in which it will be used to create new cans that will be repainted, and filled with their product, to be sent back out on the market.

There are also two other forms of thermal treatment. These are Pyrolysis and Gasification. Basically they will use high pressure, and high temperature to convert the materials into energy. By using Pyrolysis, they can convert materials into something called Char. This can then be created into items such as activated carbon, which can be used for a variety of things. Gasification changes organic materials into a synthetic gas called Syngas, which is made up of carbon monoxide and hydrogen.

Another familiar product that they will recycle and reuse is glass bottles. They will send them to the meltdown factories, where they will be melted down, and then reshaped into the bottles that they once were. Then they’ll sell those on the market again, with either the same product in them, or a different product. This is basically how they will recycle and reuse the plastics, glasses, or metals that we recycle.

Politics of Biofuels

Biofuels have become a major issue now since the gas and oil prices have been steadily increasing. As for the environmental effects, they are all good. Through the use of biofuels, we can cut back on the air pollutants we are emitting from our engines, and this will stop the green house effect. The green house effect is cause by the carbon that our engines are emitting. Now if we were to transform all uses of energy to using biofuels, then we would have effectively stopped polluting out atmosphere with carbons that are destroying the ozone layer, and causing the earth to heat up.

Now, the production of biofuels will take a lot longer than using gas and oil. Not to mention it is not as cheap as the gas or oil. These are things that we are working on making faster, and cheaper. The cost of creating biofuels right now far outweighs the cost of harvesting oil, and using that. At the current point in time, the earth’s economy is not ready for a big change. Therefore, the steps we are taking, slowly, to change our economy to one based off of biofuels is the correct way to go. If we just stopped using oil all together, it would damage our economy greatly, and possibly beyond repair. So unfortunately at this time, biofuels are not the way to go, until we can figure out ways of creating them faster, and making them more cost efficient.

It also depends on where you are in the world. Some counties are moving faster on using biofuels, and cars that run on biofuels, than others. In Europe, the hybrid car is something that people see more often than not. America is not ready for cars that run on ethanol on a large scale yet, and this is because our economy is much to dependent on oil. The same is for the Middle East, in which their whole economy is dependent on oil. If everyone were to just stop using oil, then the Middle East would crash, and not be able to bring in any income, because their major export had just run out of steam.

These are all things that we need to think about because it would destroy our economy since oil seems to be so inbred into us. But at the same time, if we don’t do anything about the rate that we are consuming the fossil fuels, we will run out of them. And when we do, the world’s economy will crash. Therefore, we need to start preparing for that, and make the right moves. Doing research on alternative fuel sources, such as biofuels will certainly help us out in that aspect. It will also be environmentally friendly, and will allow us to kill two birds with one stone. The use of Biofuels will become more and more necessary as time goes on, and we as the earth will not be able to escape the simple fact that, unless we have a vastly renewable source of energy, we will run out.

Bibliography

Gwinn, Robert P. 1986. The New Encyclopaedia Britannica. Goetz, Philip W. University of Chicago, Chicago. Volume 4. Pages 129, 583, 741

November 16th, 2006. Biofuels - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. http://en. November 16th, 2006.

November 16th, 2006. Ethanol fuel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. http://en. November 16th, 2006.

November 16th, 2006. Microbial fuel cell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. http://en. November 16th, 2006.

November 16th, 2006. Waste Management - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. http://en. November 16th, 2006.