Students receive award for biodiesel fuel system
Josh Kurtz
Issue date: 5/2/08 Section: News
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The award the team won will give them additional funding of up to $75,000 to continue working on the project.
The team's future goals for the project include attempting to use the project commercially, according to Cory Melick, a sophomore majoring in chemical engineering.
"We hope to partner with the Fry-o-Diesel Company of Philadelphia," Melick, who hopes to design a pilot plant with the company, said.
The team is also considering acquiring a patent for the project, according to Richard Cairncross, an associate professor of chemical engineering at Drexel.
Cairncross served as Melick's advisor during the STAR program as well as the advisor for the team during the school year.
Chad Cavan, a senior majoring in chemical engineering, said he was optimistic about the potential of the product because the economic analysis of the project showed that the model "is a profitable plant design," Cavan said.
"As the technology is tweaked and optimized, this definitely could be implemented on a large scale," he added.
Cavan said that while the project does not represent the whole solution to fuel issues, it could be a piece of the answer.
One advantage to this system, as opposed to other processes that use food products for fuel, is that trap grease does not serve another purpose, according to Cavan. Some products that can be used for fuel, such as corn, have uses as food as well. Trap grease, on the other hand, is "practically a free material," Cavan said.
There are other designs for transforming waste grease into fuel, but Drexel's design is more energy effective, according to Cavan.
The design of the system is robust enough to be used with other feedstocks as well, Cairncross said.
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