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Two chemists at Brown University have streamlined the conversion of waste vegetable oil (WVO) into biodiesel, eliminating the need for corrosive chemicals to perform the reactions. Current techniques for the conversion of waste vegetable oil to biodiesel take time, are costly and are inefficient. That makes the process less efficient.
Their goal is to test an innovative electrolyzer concept for the cheap production of green (CO 2 -free) hydrogen for a decarbonized future. Hago Energetics, Inc aims to help farms become more profitable by converting farm waste to high-value products, such as hydrogen and valuable carbons.
The current predominant method for the transesterification of triglycerides (plant and animal oils and fats) to biodiesel (a mixture of esters) uses chemical catalysts (sodium or potassium hydroxides or alkoxides). The results, the authors suggested in their paper, constitute a good starting point for efficient and cheap biodiesel production.
The new technique employs an abundant and environmentally benign sorbent: sodium carbonate (the main ingredient in baking soda). These permeable silicone beads could be a “sliced-bread” breakthrough for CO 2 capture—efficient, easy-to-handle, minimal waste, and cheap to make.
They used nickel and aluminium as materials for the cathode and anode respectively, with sodium aluminium tetrachloride (NaAlCl 4 ) as the molten-salt electrolyte—all relatively cheap, earth-abundant materials. However, in the PNNL team’s demonstration, the freeze–thaw mechanism of the molten salt is able to circumvent that problem.
This chemically rearranges seawater molecules (hydrogen, oxygen, and sodium chloride) based on their constituent ions charge, resulting in the production of an acid (hydrochloric acid) and a base (sodium hydroxide). The acid stream, however, becomes a waste by-product that will need to be neutralized.
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