BLEND FUELS FROM TREES WITH BIODIESEL TO POWER ENGINES

The need for energy is increasing day by day with increased equipment needing fuels for its working. Petroleum and coal are some of the non-renewable fuels available today that prove to be harmful as it induces global warming. Moreover its stocks are decreasing day by day, proving a need for finding alternative sources of renewable energy.
This is why researchers in Georgia have come across a new biofuel that is derived from wood chips. Though wood has produced different fuels over the years, this new fuel that is unnamed, is blended with biodiesel and petroleum diesel so that it can be used to power conventional engines.
This new method of producing fuels from wood is much cheaper than previous methods where the oil is treated inexpensively to use both in unmodified diesel engines and be blended with biodiesel and petroleum diesel. Pellets which are quarter an inch in diameter and six-tenths of an inch long are heated with wood chips at a high temperature, in the absence of oxygen. This process is called pyrolysis.
About a third of the wood’s dry weight turns into charcoal and the remaining, gas. This gas is condensed into liquid bio-oil to be chemically treated. Once this process is over, 34% of the bio-oil is used to power engines. Work is still going on to find means of getting more oil from the wood.
With Georgia having about 24 million acres of forest land, this process of producing fuels will provide increased employment and tax revenues. In addition to this, the fuel also reduces the amount of fuel that has to otherwise be imported form other states and countries.