Biocombustibles, con @gomobel

El Método

Esta semana Biocombustibles [y mucho más sobre la matriz energética] con Fernando Gomollón @gomobel.

Sobre el proyecto fotográfico que os cuento --> Martín Orozco en https://www.instagram.com/martinorozco/

Para seguir la final del concurso de podcasts en CUNY este fin de semana --> http://www.cuonda.com/callforpitches/

Notas sobre el paper:

Diesel Fuel Could Go Completely Natural, Thanks to Chemistry

Scientists have designed a process to transform components of rapeseed oil into the ingredients for a sustainable diesel fuel. This could mean that instead of modifying cars on the road in order for them to run on diesel fuel made from plant sources, existing cars could readily receive this fuel at the pump. Diesel fuels made from renewable resources are of increasing importance around the world; by 2020, the European Union aims for 10% of transport fuel to come from renewable resources and in recent years the US Environmental Protection Agency has raised renewable fuel goals as well. A major problem, however, is that diesel engines already on the road are not designed to burn fuels made from plant sources, which boil differently than traditional diesel fuels. A team of researchers led by Lukas Goossen designed a low-temperature chemical process to transform a mixture of plant oil esters into a diesel fuel suitable for modern engines. They used ethylene—a colorless, flammable gas—to transform the long carbon chains in commercial rapeseed oil into a mixture of compounds with shorter chains. The entire process could use renewable resources if the ethylene is, for example, derived from corn and other plants. The resulting fuel functioned more like normal petrodiesel than other plant-derived diesel fuels. The researchers then designed a model car with a miniature diesel engine and demonstrated that their new fuel could power the vehicle (see video). The fuel is still far from commercialization – the first fuel batch cost more than 1,000 euros per liter, or about $1,125 per quart, to produce – and future research will focus on bringing the cost down.

Article #13: "Biofuel by isomerizing metathesis of rapeseed oil esters with (bio)ethylene for use in contemporary diesel engines," by K.F. Pfister; S. Baader; M. Baader at Technical University of Kaiserslautern in Kaiserslautern, Germany; S. Berndt at University of Rostock in Rostock, Germany; L.J. Goossen at Ruhr-Universität Bochum in Bochum, Germany.

El Método es un podcast producido por @Luis_Quevedo para los que, enamorados del mundo, queremos aprender más de él a través de la mejor herramienta que ha desarrollado la humanidad, la ciencia.

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