Blend fuels from trees with biodiesel to power engines
The need for energy is increasing day by day with increased equipment needing fuels for its working. Petroleum and coal are some of the non-renewable fuels available today that prove to be harmful as it induces global warming. Moreover its stocks are decreasing day by day, proving a need for finding alternative sources of renewable energy.
This is why researchers in Georgia have come across a new biofuel that is derived from wood chips. Though wood has produced different fuels over the years, this new fuel that is unnamed, is blended with biodiesel and petroleum diesel so that it can be used to power conventional engines.
This new method of producing fuels from wood is much cheaper than previous methods where the oil is treated inexpensively to use both in unmodified diesel engines and be blended with biodiesel and petroleum diesel. Pellets which are quarter an inch in diameter and six-tenths of an inch long are heated with wood chips at a high temperature, in the absence of oxygen. This process is called pyrolysis.
About a third of the wood’s dry weight turns into charcoal and the remaining, gas. This gas is condensed into liquid bio-oil to be chemically treated. Once this process is over, 34% of the bio-oil is used to power engines. Work is still going on to find means of getting more oil from the wood.
With Georgia having about 24 million acres of forest land, this process of producing fuels will provide increased employment and tax revenues. In addition to this, the fuel also reduces the amount of fuel that has to otherwise be imported form other states and countries.
BioOil as alternative and renewable source of energy
Pretty soon, the earth is expected to run short of its present sources of energy like petroleum, coal and charcoal. Though there may be shortage of energy, the need for energy will never go down; in fact, it’s escalating day by day.
This is the reason why researchers all over the world are putting on their thinking hats to find new and feasible sources of renewable energy.
Today one of the best forms of renewable and alternative energy is BioOil. This is basically a fuel that is produced through Dynamotive’s pyrolysis process of biomass. This is a process where the plant material, in other words, biomass like sawdust or bagasse obtained form sugar cane is exposed to a temperature of 400 -500 degrees Celsius in an oxygen free environment.
BioOil is a free flowing liquid fuel that is dark brown in color, and has a smoky odor that is reminiscent of the plant it is derived from. There is about 25% water in BioOil, which is not found in a separate phase. The reason there is water in BioOil is that it helps in lowering the viscosity of the fuel.
Though Orimulsion is a hydrocarbon-water mix, BioOil is not. In addition to this, BioOil has another feature. It is a fuel with a propensity of changing slowly with time. It is not possible to consider this to be an instability as it can take months for the change to take place.
Biogas for alternative energy
The increased consumption of energy all over the world has led to a drastic increase to the rates of all carbon based fuels. In addition to this, carbon based fuels has a finite source that will not be able to meet the increasing fuel needs in the world.
And with fossil fuels emitting excessive carbon dioxide and other gases, they prove to increase the incidence of global warming in the world. So to meet the energy needs of the world and to control global warming, scientists and researchers all over the world are working at creating new fuels.
One such discovery is the creation of biogas to be used for cooking purposes. It was the people of Santa Fe de Guatuso who came up with this idea as they could not afford to buy more than a tank of gas costing $15 to meet their monthly cooking needs.
The increased rate of the gas tank was because the town is basically located in a remote location.
Using firewood for cooking was an alternative they had thought of, however this was a harmful option in the short term as its ignition in the kitchen with plastics and rubbers made it burn and give off carcinogenic dioxins. Moreover felling of trees proved to be a long term problem to the people of Guatuso region.
Torn between health and finance concerns, the Santa Fe Women’s Group chose to use the animal waste produced from their cattle to create biogas for cooking. With this option, not only is the environmental threat from burning firewood eliminated, it also solves the problem of animal waste management in this dairy producing town.
Bacteria help create renewable biofuels
Non-renewable sources of energy is now depleting all over the world.
With modern day urbanization, the consumption of energy has increased with the number of vehicles and electrical gadgets increasing day by day. This has in turn led to the decrease in fuel resources and an increase in global warming.
This is why researchers from across the world has set about looking for alternate forms of renewable energy to meet the energy needs of the future.
One such source of renewable energy is biofuels that is produced from food crops, with the help of specially engineered bacteria. This breakthrough was achieved by a group of German scientists who were looking for an efficient means of producing a renewable source of energy.
Biofuel or biodiesel is an alternate source of energy that is made in a large scale in many countries today. However the method used to create this biodiesel today is very expensive. Basically, plant oils from seeds of oilseed crops like soy or rapeseed is used for producing biodiesel.
And to produce this biofuel, lots of land or acreage is required. This is a factor that is today limiting the widespread production and use of biodiesel. In addition to this factor, in many countries, the production of biodiesel competes with the production of food. This tends to raise some ethical concerns in many countries.
However in the latest process of producing the biofuel a new product, micro diesel, is the result of this process. This is a biofuel that is produced in different methods where not only is the same plant oils used for its production, even bulk plant materials and recycled waste paper can be used for its production if its production strain is done with advanced engineering methods.
Solar Ponds. The low cost and low tech approach
With dwindling sources of fossil fuels, scientists all over the world are looking for alternate forms of energy that can be used by the common man. And one of the most feasible and best forms of alternate energy is solar energy that is available for free to everyone.
One of the best ways of harnessing solar energy is through solar ponds.
A solar pond is basically a pool of water that collects and also stores solar energy. The peculiarity of the solar pond is that it has layers of salt solutions of differing concentration and thus, different densities to a certain depth. Once this depth is reached, you find water with uniform, high salt concentration.
The solar pond is a relatively low tech and low cost approach for harvesting solar energy which is done very easily. To make a solar pond, you have to first fill a pond with three layers of water where the top layer has a low salt content in it. Next comes the intermediate insulating layer that has a salt gradient that has a density gradient. It is this density gradient that helps in preventing heat exchange with the natural convection of water.
The bottom layer of the solar pond has a high salt content that reaches temperatures reaching 90 degrees Celsius. It is because of these different salt contents in the different layers of water that the different layers have different densities. With the different densities in the water, the development of convection currents is prevented, which would have transferred heat to the surface of the pond, and then to the air above.
Sugar can be used to provide fuels to cars
With exhausting fuel resources, and the threat of global warming from released carbon into the atmosphere looming over our heads, researchers and scientists around the world are looking for alternate sources of energy; and one of them is derived from the common day sugar we use.
A team of researchers has devised a two stage process for turning biomass derived sugar into 2, 5-dimethylfuran (DMF). This is basically a liquid transportation fuel that has a 40% more energy density than ethanol and is a sustainable carbon-neutral fuel that reduces the amount of global reliance on fossil fuels.
This fuel is produced with numerous steps in chemical engineering, starting with sugar. Sugar is passed through acid and copper catalysts, with butanol acting as a solvent and some salt. Presently, the only form of renewable liquid fuel that is produced on a large scale is ethanol.
However though ethanol is so widely produced, it has a low energy density which makes it evaporate readily. In addition to this, ethanol easily gets contaminated by absorbing water from the atmosphere. With this absorption, there is a need of an energy intensive distillation process that separates this fuel from the absorbed water.
This is one of the reasons why dimethylfuran is a preferred fuel over ethanol. It also has a high energy content which addresses all the shortcomings of ethanol. As DMF is not soluble in water, there is no question of it getting contaminated by the absorption of water from the atmosphere.
In addition to this, DMF is stable when stored. During the evaporation stage of its production, you find that it consumes only a third of the required energy for evaporating a solution of ethanol that is produced by fermentation in biofuel applications.
It is now possible to produce hydrogen from visible light
Power is something that is very much required in all spheres of life; in offices, homes, schools and malls. However the present stock of natural energy the earth has and provides is getting exhausted by the minute.
This is the reason researchers and scientists from all over the world are constantly on the lookout for new and the latest sources of renewable energy.
Producing hydrogen from natural gas is a process that has been around for some time. However the process of producing hydrogen from natural gas tends to produce lots of climate changing greenhouse gases. In the process, a nonrenewable resource too is consumed, thus running against the actual intention of the procedure.
This is why a new and more environmentally friendly approach has been found out where hydrogen is produced from water, with the help of the renewable source of energy, sunlight.
Recent studies have shown that researchers have found out that by the fabrication of thin films of self-aligned and vertically oriented titanium iron oxide nanotube arrays tend to show the ability and possibility of splitting water in the presence of natural sunlight.
These same researchers had previously reported the creation of Titania nanotube arrays in the presence of photo conversion efficiency of 16.5%, in the presence of ultraviolet light. The choice of titanium oxide in the creation of long lasting solar cells is that titanium oxide is a compound that is usually used in the manufacture of white paints and sunscreens.
Solar Cells in Cars
With the dwindling energy sources, the global car industry is quickly addressing significant and usual concerns about energy consumption in vehicles.
It is a common knowledge that cars need energy to be able to move and facilitate mobility. Cars need fuel to run and electricity from batteries to start up the engine and provide energy for the function of other accessories like lights, airconditioner and car stereo.
But because crude supplies are diminishing and are constantly rising in prices, car manufacturers are doing efforts to develop solutions to such energy problems. Photovoltaic energy production or solar cells is the most promising avenue to resolve such a problem.
Carmakers started out energy saving measures by developing and introducing hybrid cars, which facilitate for lesser fuel consumption. Now, consumers and car assemblers are both excited about the integration of solar cells within car systems.
There are several car models now that have photovoltaic cells at the roof to facilitate collection of solar energy. The energy would then be converted into electrical forms to be used by the car to operate some parts and accessories.
Alternatives to Silicon in Photovoltaic Cells
The industry of solar cells is truly still at its young stage. It follows and it is very apparent that there is still a significant room for improvement. There is no need to justify and verify the validity and effectiveness of photovoltaic or solar cells in generating electricity. It has already been established. However, there is one area of concern.
Silicon mostly makes up the entire solar cells. That is because the element is the common solar energy absorbent that could facilitate the flow of photons and electrons as prompted by solar light and energy collection.
But now, because silicon is becoming a rare and expensive raw material and because of its limitations, industry players are rushing to replace the element with other materials without compromising the solar cells’ overall and general energy generation capacity.
Some feasible and already used alternatives or replacements to silicon include titanium oxide, which facilitates for photosynthesis-like solar power generation.
Titanium oxide also facilitates power generation even during rainy days because of its ability to collect even low-level sunlight. Now, cadmium telluride and copper indium diselenide is also in experimental stages.
These materials when used to replace silicon would make solar cells more affordable and easily installable at common households.
Primitive Means of Utilizing Solar Energy
Solar energy is the most promising renewable energy source being eyed by different energy producers all over the world. That is because there is always an abundant supply of sunlight in many parts of the world.
The sun is a good source of two energy forms, heat and light, which are important as factors in the production of overall energy consumed across the market.
Because the sun has always been there in the sky since civilizations started on the planet, it is just logical to infer that the first few forms of energy used by mankind are topped by solar energy.
In the past, ancient architects utilized solar energy by designing and creating windows that facilitate maximized use of the light and heat from the sun. Researches and historical diggings suggest that in the primitive Greece, Americas and China, the sun’s heat was used as a primary source of warmth in enclosed areas like homes.
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