Aquafuel

"glycerine is... possibly the best fuel in the world. It isn’t toxic; it is water soluble; and it’s nearly impossible to ignite glycerine under normal conditions."

This is the claim made by Paul Day founder and Chief Executive of UK company Aquafuel. His company has succeeded in making a diesel engine run on glycerine (a bi product of biodiesel production) with much lower toxic emissions than an engine running on standard diesel fuel. On the face of it this is a useful process to utilise a product for which is there is little current demand. According to The Chemical Engineer magazine for every tonne of biodiesel produced, 100-110 kg of glycerine is obtained as a side product. The world supply of glycerine in 2008 was 3.2m t and the demand just 0.9m t.

It seems odd that anyone would try and run an engine on glycerine but this mad punt seems to have hit the jackpot. Where this story gets really interesting is if you decide that glycerine is better than bio diesel and, rather than try to produce biodiesel, focus on production of glycerine. It turns out that there is a strain of algae called dunaliella salina which grows in salt water and fills its body with glycerine to counteract the osmotic pressure of the salt. At high salt concentrations the amount of glycerine in the algae can be as high as 80%. Harvest the algae, extract the glycerine and there is the fuel of the future.

The algae can grow in the evaporation ponds used by the salt-making industry and there is no conflict with food production or land use. Aquafuel believes that places like Namibia could support a large industry with all the production powered by CHP units running on the glycerine and taken to market on ships powered by glycerine. This would appear to be a clean and sustainable fuel source.

I will be watching Aquafuel with interest over the years ahead and hope that governments drive up the taxes on fossil fuels to ensure that businesses such as Aquafuel are commercially viable.