Sustaining Our Planet for Future Generations
Biofuels from Algae
Summary
Biofuels are one of the most common non environmental friendly things in our daily life. After searching we found that we can replace regular car fuel with biodiesel coming from algae. This biodiesel is extracted by blending algae then using potassium hydroxide as a catalyst instead of sodium hydroxide by passing water by gravel and ash(wood ash). After that we separate biodiesel from Glycerol by using alcohol instead of Methanol which is a dangerous pollutant.
How We Addressed This Challenge
There is concern worldwide that environmental issues we face today will have an impact on future generations. The world depends on fossil fuels. Inexpensive fossil fuels have improved the quality of life for many people. Try to imagine what life might be like without gasoline to power our vehicles, or coal to produce electricity. So, what's the problem? Let's begin with pollution. Fossil fuels take a toll on the environment. They cause obvious problems such as oil spills and smog filled air. They also cause other, more complicated problems that are not so easy to see. Acid rain, for example, caused partially by sulfur in fossil fuels, damages buildings and harms trees, aquatic life, and insects.
There are many advantages of Biofuels over fossil fuels that make the alternative fuel source an attractive option now and in the future. Biofuels have been in production for the last few decades and have really begun to take off with the awareness of global warming going around the world. Here are some of the benefits of biofuels over fossil fuels.
The Biofuels advantages are represented in some points as following:
- Lower emissions. One of the biggest knocks against fossil fuels is that they give off toxic emissions. These pollutants, called greenhouse gases, trap the sun rays inside our atmosphere. This causes global warming. Biofuels do not release as much carbon as fossil fuels do, and because of this, there are fewer harmful emissions out of biofuels.
- Renewable. Being made from organic materials, and even organic waste, there is practically an infinite amount of biofuels available. We can grow it ourselves by producing corn, which is currently the product most used to make biofuel. Not to mention, using waste means we don't need to lose energy getting rid of our waste, but reverse the process and make sure we get all the energy out of it that we can. This may be one of the biggest reasons that biofuels are getting more popularity.
- Biodegradable. Biofuels are made out of organic substances, which are biodegradable. These fuels are much less toxic in the event that something happens like the oil spills that occur, whether it be the Exxon Valdez spill or the one in the Gulf of Mexico. These spills are made worse due to the fact that it is oil. If these spills were of biofuels, they would break down naturally, and the environment would not be affected nearly as much.
- Safer. Finding these fossil fuels in the earth is dangerous. There is drilling, mining and other activities that are done to get to traditional oil reserves. There is not as much danger when you just need to grow the biofuels on a farm.
, So Biofuels have a lot of advantages, and this is the reason that made us excited to know more about this type of fuels hoping to solve one of the environmental issues such as marine pollution, air pollution,...etc, and the fuel problem is worldwide, as most of the Earth people rely on fossil fuels, but fossil fuels will run out, so we decided to focus our work on an alternative solution which is Biofuel.
Here is an overview about our idea:
Scientists use modern and harmful methods in completing the process of extracting oils and converting them to biofuels from algae, but there are many negatives that these methods cause. For example, the use of these methods requires a lot of time according to each method, but all of them need a lot of time and this leads to slow production and use mechanisms such as these require modern machinery and therefore require a high cost. However, the most important problem is the environmental pollution resulting from these methods. For example, when using methanol gas in one of the ways leads to damage to the environment and many other methods that destroy the environment, so in our method this simple, inexpensive tools leads to a significant saving in financing while ensuring the same efficiency of the product. In addition to preserving the environmental balance and preventing environmental pollution. Biofuels are one of the most common non environmental friendly things in our daily life. After searching we found that we can replace regular car fuel with biodiesel coming from algae. This biodiesel is extracted by blending algae then using potassium hydroxide as a catalyst instead of sodium hydroxide by passing water by gravel and ash(wood ash). After that we separate biodiesel from Glycerol by using alcohol instead of Methanol which is a dangerous pollutant.
Future work, and suggestions:
-Planting Algae near to factories that produce CO2 in the hope of reducing global warming.
-Using Volcanic ash that cause lung cancer instead of wood ash.
-Using Methanol instead of Alcohol and Sodium hydroxide instead of potassium hydroxide.
Resources:
• Hannon, M., Gimpel, J., Tran, M., Rasala, B., & Mayfield, S. (2010, September). Biofuels from algae: Challenges and potential. Retrieved July 20, 2020, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3152439/ • Rafael, L, handbook of biofuels production, 2010
• Kumar, V, Biofuels technologies: Recent developments, 2013
• Rafael, L, Advances in Biodiesel production, 2012.
How We Developed This Project
Scientists use modern and harmful methods in completing the process of extracting oils and converting them to biofuels from algae, but there are many negatives that these methods cause. For example, the use of these methods requires a lot of time according to each method, but all of them need a lot of time and this leads to slow production and use mechanisms such as these require modern machinery and therefore require a high cost. However, the most important problem is the environmental pollution resulting from these methods. For example, when using methanol gas in one of the ways leads to damage to the environment and many other methods that destroy the environment, so in our method this simple, inexpensive tools leads to a significant saving in financing while ensuring the same efficiency of the product. In addition to preserving the environmental balance and preventing environmental pollution.
Microalgae in particular is high oil content, and extracting Biofuels is somewhat complicated, time-consuming, and expensive, so we did a lot of search about alternatives.
Here is the summary of our idea in some steps:
-Separating oil from Algae using garlic blender or blender (instead of sound waves, and high pressure which scientists use in real life).
- we will need methanol to separate the oil from Glycerine, but Some of the disadvantages of methanol are that although its emissions are safer than that of gasoline, it has a high amount of formaldehyde emissions. As with Ethanol, it gets less gas mileage, so it would require more frequent fueling. The cost of methanol is also slightly higher than that of premium gasoline, so we will use Alcohol or at least drinking alcohol which people usually take with on holidays.
-Also, we will need to use sodium hydroxide as a catalyst, but sodium hydroxide is strongly irritating and corrosive. It can cause severe burns and permanent damage to any tissue that it comes in contact with. Sodium hydroxide can cause hydrolysis of proteins, and hence can cause burns in the eyes which may lead to permanent eye damage, so will use an alternative which is potassium hydroxide, but how we will get it? By using 3 components which are gravel, wood ash (it's preferable to use hard wood not soft like pine to get good results).
-finally, we will add the the potassium hydroxide that we made to the oil separated from Algae, and we will add Alcohol. Then we have to wait a couple of hours to get our Biofuel.
Results:
This project affects several things that are essential to its success, namely :
••The time we need to complete the process: Extracting oils from algae requires a lot of time, so with these simple methods we can do the same goal in less time
••the cost: Using this method ensures that the cost of the process is reduced to a maximum of a quarter of the natural cost due to the simplicity and availability of the tools
••Efficiency: Ensure the same efficiency of the product as the materials used do the same process and be in a different way, which prevents affecting the efficiency of the product in terms of quality or quantity ••Preserving and saving the environmental balance: Cultivation of algae beside factories ensures that they absorb Co2 from the factories and using our method of obtaining fuel with natural materials leads to a reduction in environmental pollution. So we can use this project to guarantee us the same production experience, but in another way, it is safer and more secure.
Achievements, and skills gained:
From this project we have fulfilled a lot success like time, cost, efficiency, implementing eco-system, also we enhanced our knowledge more about plants, Fuels, and biofuels. Etc and concluded that this project is more efficient, environmental, and low cost than a lot of recent ways that are less efficient, high cost and Environmentally unfriendly.
How We Used Space Agency Data in This Project
Some time ago, the ideas of NASA scientists began to move towards extracting new sources of energy, which is from space..As they think outside the box, we were also inspired by the idea. From the roots of the earth, simply from plants and especially algae.And by mentioning algae, the basic idea of the project was based on sources and data from NASA on the possibility of achieving the project, as an alternative to clean energy, NASA has created an algae bioreactor that grows algae in municipal wastewater to produce biofuels and a variety of other products. Potential benefits include oil production from Harvested algae, converting municipal wastewater into clean water before release into the ocean. After extracting the oil from the algae, the algae residue can be used to make fertilizers, animal feed, cosmetics, or other valuable products.
This successful successful NASA-derived technology will help support the commercial development of a new algae-based biofuel industry and wastewater treatment.
Also, what increased the possibility for us to benefit from algae in the project is the NASA research and their statement that algae are suitable for breathing and food, or in other words, "a source of energy." And here was the basis of our project, and according to NASA's statements, the air in the International Space Station may become much better quality, according to Space.com, The astronauts will test a bioreactor that relies on algae to convert carbon dioxide into breathing oxygen and produce palatable food.
Project Demo
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iFHCtdEVcJHg-Nhp9bDRa9Oa32EdU7Yi/view?usp=drivesdk
Data & Resources
• Hannon, M., Gimpel, J., Tran, M., Rasala, B., & Mayfield, S. (2010, September). Biofuels from algae: Challenges and potential. Retrieved July 20, 2020, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3152439/ • Rafael, L, handbook of biofuels production, 2010
• Kumar, V, Biofuels technologies: Recent developments, 2013
• Rafael, L, Advances in Biodiesel production, 2012