A team from Tainan City-based National Cheng Kung University in southern Taiwan has developed a way to convert waste cooking oil into biodiesel by heating it for 10 seconds in a microwave oven with a strontium oxide catalyst, and the technology should enter mass production within a year, NCKU said Oct. 31.
The process was developed by an NCKU team led by professor Liao Jiunn-der of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering in conjunction with Aharon Gedanken of Israel-based Bar-Ilan University, who is a visiting professor in the department. They have applied to patent the technology, which converts 99 percent of the waste oil into biodiesel.
Taiwan produces about 540,000 metric tons of waste cooking oil per year, creating a serious environmental problem. For several years Gedanken has been working with the EU on conversion of waste cooking oil into biodiesel.
According to Gedanken, the key nanotechnologies are highly efficient, producing 1 percent glycerol in addition to the biodiesel, so nothing goes to waste.
Chemical conversion of waste cooking oil into biodiesel usually employs alkalis, Liao said. The process has lower efficiency and it is difficult to recover the catalysts. NCKU’s solid phase method, using strontium oxide on a silica pellet substrate, is 2.5 times as efficient. The catalyst is also fully recoverable, saving on resources and lowering costs.
The team’s prototype has 100 kilogram daily production capacity, but could easily be scaled up to 10 times this size or more to meet customer demand, Gedanken said.
According to Liao, in accordance with the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and the global trend toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Taiwan adopted a biodiesel plan in 2004. Starting in 2008, diesel fuel was required to contain 1 percent biodiesel, rising to 2 percent in 2010 and 5 percent in 2016, with further increases in the future. Domestic biodiesel production is currently valued at NT$3 billion (US$102 million) annually.
Gedanken and Liao are co-chairs of the International Cooperation Project on Novel Synergistic Approaches Based on Nanotechnologies, which also includes professors Chang Jo-shu and Chen Bing-hung of NCKU’s Department of Chemical Engineering and professors Lin Shih-kang and Hsu Wen-dung of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. (SDH)
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