Innovative Enzymatic Reactor for Production of Alternative Fuels

NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY: Current technology of biodiesel production is facing two major hurdles. It can't process the grease containing high free fatty acid (FFA) and the production cost is still not competitive compared to the petroleum diesel. The proposed technology addresses these problems and intends to produce biodiesel at $0.20 per gallon for production costs and less that $1.00 total cost. We are developing a biodiesel production process which focuses on the use of a low-cost feedstock (animal fat and recycled cooking oil), which combined with a low-cost production technology, results in product that is competitive in price with petroleum diesel. Nine billion pounds of animal byproducts and recycled vegetable oil are collected in the U.S., which can be potentially converted to 1.2 billion gallons of B100, which can replace 1.1 billion gallons, or 26 million barrels, of petroleum diesel fuel. If half of these feedstocks are converted to biodiesel, that provides a U.S. market for sixty 10-million gallon per year plants.