Canola Oil Production Eyed By Penn State Researchers
September 4th, 2010 - 10:57 pm ICT by GDBy Ranjan Bhaduri
Sep 4, (THAINDIAN NEWS) Penn State is looking forward to use canola seed for making edible oil and bio diesel in the near future. A year old research is being carried on for this purpose. The project aims to produce canola oil that can be used for cooking purposes in the dining hall fryers in the university. Lisa Wandel, the Director of Residence Dining expects that at least 3/4th of the oil requirements of the university can be produced from the university farmlands in near future. However, gathering funds for getting the required equipments remains the biggest challenge. Once that is done, oil production will become easier.
More than 26000 gallons of cooking oil is used in the Penn State campuses per year. The leftover oil is later collected by the researchers who add sodium hydroxide and methanol to it so that it becomes bio-fuel. As of now, the canola oil produced by Penn State is not used in the dining hall in the campus but using the existing facility, 50 gallons of oil can be derived per day. Before the officials can use the oil on campus, the oil seed press has to be shifted to a state approved facility.
The initial start up expenses is steep, but the recycling and production cost of canola oil will help the university in cost cutting in the long run. Despite the initial problems, the university authorities are hopeful that they can implement the project sometime in the near future. Alternative sources of energy are being sought by many entities and bio-diesel or bio-fuel from plant seeds is a viable alternative.
- Chinese plane flies on biofuel - Oct 28, 2011
- Many biofuels less sustainable than petrol: Experts - Apr 04, 2012
- Common roadside plant could become new source of biofuel - Nov 05, 2010
- Re-heating cooking oil could be toxic for health - Feb 27, 2012
- Brazil to make sugarcane fuel - Jul 23, 2010
- Burning bush plant promises low-cal vegetable oil, biofuels - May 21, 2010
- Bio-fuel not at cost of food security: FAO - Oct 04, 2011
- Government told to decide fast on bio-fuels programme: Parliament panel - May 07, 2012
- Tweaked E coli can produce low-cost fuel - Jan 28, 2010
- US meat company converts waste animal fat into renewable diesel fuel - Dec 25, 2010
- Imported edible oils find growing market in India - Feb 20, 2011
- UK company claims it can 'grow diesel' - Mar 01, 2011
- 'Use canola or olive oil for better health' - Jan 11, 2012
- Soon, whisky-powered cars to hit the roads - Aug 18, 2010
- Ramesh cautions against use of biofuels in automobiles - Aug 26, 2010
Tags: alternative sources of energy, bio diesel, bio fuel, canola oil, cooking oil, dining hall, edible oil, farmlands, fryers, initial problems, methanol, oil production, oil seed, penn state campuses, penn state researchers, plant seeds, recycling, sodium hydroxide, sources of energy, university authorities