Biodiesel News

Advait, a newly established biofuel company, has signed a contract with Yum! Restaurants India, which operates KFC Taco Bell and Pizza Hut in the country, to collect used cooking oil (UCO) from KFC in the Andhra and Telangana region. Advait will convert the collected product into biodiesel or export it to Europe for biodiesel processing. The company is one of the major (UCO) collectors in India…
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Biodiesel produced by Universal Biofuels, an Indian subsidiary of Aemetis, has been used by bulk customers to replace 100% petroleum diesel with 100% distilled biodiesel (B100), reducing emissions by 80% and providing cost savings to customers. Traditionally, in Europe and in the United States, biodiesel is blended in the range of 5% to 20% with petroleum diesel due to colder temperature…
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Florida Biodiesel has completed the sale of a B-500 biodiesel plant to the Grand Bahama Power Company (GBPC) in the Bahamas. The biodiesel production equipment, using waste cooking oil as feedstock, will be used to demonstrate green fuel technology and produce biodiesel for the Bahamas. The B-500 plant is economical to operate and will allow the GBPC to produce 1,600 gallons of biodiesel a…
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Nidera, an agriculture supply company, has earned the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials (RSB) certification for the production and trading of biofuels from used cooking oil (UCO). Nidera, based in the Netherlands, operates worldwide as a commodity service and solutions provider for the global agricultural markets and has an active presence in more than 18 countries. The certification scope…
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Locomotive producer Reloc – Electroputere VFU Craiova, part of the railway group Grampet, has developed the first locomotive in Romania which runs exclusively on pure biodiesel or vegetable oil. The engine is equivalent to a traditional diesel-powered engine in power and performance, but with much lower polluting emissions, the company says. The locomotive is still being tested, and so far…
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Wood-based BioVerno diesel by Finland’s UPM has been found to significantly reduce harmful tailpipe emissions, the company reports. A number of engine and vehicle tests have been carried out across key research institutes, such as VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, University of Vaasa in Finland, and at FEV, internationally recognised vehicle engineering company based in Germany. UPM…
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The Biofat project, a microalgae-to-biofuel FP7 demonstration project, has confirmed algae’s potential as a sustainable biofuel source with low greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The project has concentrated on improving and demonstrating sustainability in the process, considering both environmental (e.g. use of marine strains to limit freshwater use) and economic (e.g. low energy consumption)…
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In the US, California's Air Resources Board (ARB) has listed biodiesel as the lowest-carbon fuel in the state’s revised Low Carbon Fuels Standard (LCFS). The new standard affirms biodiesel reduces greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% and often by as much as 81% when compared with petroleum, giving biodiesel the best carbon score among all liquid fuels. As part of the…
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Chemical engineers from Iran have found a way to produce biodiesel from castor oil without the need for extra petrochemical methanol using a biorefinery set-up. Producing biodiesel from vegetable oils is not completely renewable, as the standard transesterification process requires the use of methanol, which is usually produced from petrochemical sources. The researchers, Hamed Bateni and…
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Researchers from the Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) have successfully introduced an engineered lipid remodelling system into a transgenic plant to enhance biofuel production. Triacylglycerols from plants can be used to produce environmentally friendly and renewable biodiesel, and there has been great interest in using genetic engineering to enhance triacylglycerol levels in plant…
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Indonesia's state-owned energy company Pertamina expects demand for fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) to jump almost six-fold to 4.8 million kilolitre in 2016 from an estimate of 830,000kl in 2015. The projection is in accordance with the government's road map to increase FAME content in biodiesel to 20%, the company says in a statement. The mandatory mix of FAME in biodiesel this year is 15%.
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Zambian biofuels producer Tapera Industries is seeking capital funding of over ZMW5 million (appr. €454,000) to expand its operations. According to the company’s founder Mutoba Ngoma, Tapera is promoting the recycling and conversion of waste cooking oil into biodiesel and natural soaps. ‘The amount of investment into the business is approximately ZMW800,000 since 2014. This was…
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