Diesel drivers lifting vats of used fryer oil from McDonald's parking lots may want to meet behind Starbucks for their next batch of fuel. A new study from the University of Bath in England claims that 20 percent of spent coffee grounds contains oil that can be extracted and refined into biodiesel, the renewable, relatively uncommon diesel grade typically created from vegetable oil, rendered beef fat, or waste cooking oil.
Researchers ground coffee beans from 20 regions of the world and then processed them as large-scale biodiesel producers would in a process called transesterification, which is to say soaking them in an "organic solvent" and mixing them with an alcohol such as methanol to make the final product. The type of bean and whether the coffee was caffeinated or decaffeinated didn't affect the production or quality. While the biodiesel extracted would be a fraction of the amount made from filtering and processing cooking oils, the study suggests that most small coffee shops throw out enough coffee grounds to generate two liters of biodiesel per day. A U.K. company called Bio-Bean is already doing just that, selling biomass pellets and biodiesel derived from old grounds to power London buildings and some vehicles.
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Biodiesel itself remains a hard sell. While most diesel engines can run on B5 or B20 blends (5 or 20 percent biodiesel, 95 or 80 percent regular diesel) without any modifications, there are just 299 public stations selling B20 or higher grades. Full B100 biodiesel is nontoxic and burns far cleaner than regular diesel, with fewer than a quarter of the carbon dioxide emissions and a significant reduction in particulate matter. But like ethanol, biodiesel can clog fuel lines and otherwise damage engines that aren't designed for the stuff.
from Car and Driver Blog http://ift.tt/nSHy27
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