Microalgae Laboratory

Here I have picture on microalgae laboratory. I got this picture from one of research center in my country. This algae is used as biodiesel feedstock, the same as Jatropha. Here's the picture

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It is said that algae has higher potential than any other energy crops. This article is a good source for alga culture.

Carbon donation

I have been given 136 pounds of offset in my name. Are you want to have 136 pounds of offset in your name? if you do you can follow this link or click on this post title :) Save the environment Save the world

p.s. it is first come, first serve

Jatropha curcas tree

Ok, here I found another picture of Jatropha curcas in my country. It is in the same location with the one in my previous post. Its still young but you can see the flower on top of it. Well it is true, Jatropha start to make flower less than one year. I've seen one that has fruits and its' tree is just 4 months old. And the extreme that I saw was tree still in its seedbed, not yet planted on field already has flower. But I'm sure that this is an exception..?!

Jatropha curcas

Talking about biodiesel, I remember Jatropha curcas plant. This plant claimed to be prospective plant to produce biodiesel. After some promotion indeed this plant can be a good alternative for palm oil. Palm oil is edible but Jatropha oil is non-edible oil so it can't be eaten. Is it? well I've heard there are non toxic Jatropha. They said Jatropha can live in arid/semi arid land where there is no other plant can produce. I do not say can't grow because I know there are, like grass. If it is true then farmers will get additional income from this.
Above is Jatropha curcas field in my country. I got this picture when I went there some times ago. I'll post another picture when I found another one :p

Bioethanol

Bioethanol, what is bioethanol? is it the same with ethanol? is it an alcohol? Well from what i've read is bioethanol is ethanol obtained from fermentation of material containing starch or sugar such as cassava and molasses. This "Plant Oil" or PO is used to substitute gasoline. Ethanol that can be used as PO is pure, free of water, alcohol (anhydrous alcohol) with 99.5% rate. This fuel then called fuel grade ethanol (FGE). The mixture of FGE and gasoline is called gasohol in my country.
But I have question on that "Plant Oil" term, I think maybe it is used for biodiesel. Biodiesel is from oil so it can be called "Plant Oil" but for bioethanol??? Bioethanol is not from oil...

Reading material: Integrated utilization of Jatropha curcas: road to self sufficient energy village

Biodiesel

Biodiesel refers to a non-petroleum-based diesel fuel consisting of short chain alkyl (methyl or ethyl) esters, made by transesterification of vegetable oil or animal fat (tallow), which can be used (alone, or blended with conventional petrodiesel) in unmodified diesel-engine vehicles[1].
This liquid fuel, diesel like, is prospective to be developed. Biodiesel also has advantages compared to petroleum-based diesel:

• Environmentally friendly because has better emission than petrodiesel (free sulphur, low smoke number)
• higher cetane number (>57) thus has better burning efficiency compared to crude oil
• Have lubricant effect on engine's piston
• renewable energy
• biodegradable[2]
  

[1]wikipedia
[2]Teknologi bioenergi

Bioenergy conversion

With the development of the science, biomass conversion also transformed to more modern type. Now we know two type of biomass, traditional and modern. Traditional biomass like we all know is firewood while the modern biomasses are bioethanol, biodiesel, pure plant oil (PPO), straight vegetable oil (SVO), burning oil, and biogas. It is called modern biomass because to get it we need to do processing first. To get biodiesel, we need to do esterification/transesterification to crude jatropha oil (CJO) for example

Biomass conversion to modern biomass and some bioenergy can be seen on picture below.

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ref: Teknologi bioenergi ISBN 979-006-113-7

Bioenergy

Bioenergy according to the expert is renewable energy derived from biological sources while other expert said that bioenergy is stored energy from the sun contained in materials such as plant matter and animal waste, known as biomass. From description above it is clear that bioenergy and biomass is different. From wikipedia it is said that biomass is any organic material which has stored sunlight in the form of chemical energy. So you can that biomass is the fuel you used and bioenergy is the energy you get from biomass, it can be heat, light or any other form that possible like some others said.

Basically byproduct of agricultural processes are biomass, such as wood waste from plantation pruning, and the more complicated form such as biodiesel. Actually biodiesel is the form after biomass processing from biofuel feedstock such as Jatropha, palm oil, or any other "biofuel" plant.