UNH researchers turn sunflower oil into biodiesel

UNH researchers turn sunflower oil into biodiesel
The Union Leader - Manchester,NH,USA
... They are growing a variety of sunflowers on the land and plan to use oil from the flowers to create biodiesel that will power farm equipment. ...

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MADBURY – Gasoline could be obsolete for farmers who may soon be able to convert their own crops into an alternative fuel that would power their equipment and even heat their homes.

Researchers at the University of New Hampshire are helping to develop the technology on nearly four acres at the university's Kingman Farm just across the Durham town line. They are growing a variety of sunflowers on the land and plan to use oil from the flowers to create biodiesel that will power farm equipment.

Researchers have also built a small mobile biodiesel manufacturing station on a trailer. The hope is one day a similar station may be able to go to various farms and help turn their crops into the alternative fuel.

Biodiesel is an alternative form of diesel that is made from various plant matter, such as sunflower oil. In contrast, ethanol, which can also be made from plant matter, is a replacement for and readily blended with gasoline.

For now the field of sunflowers is merely an experiment, said Becky Grube, an associate professor specializing in sustainable horticulture, who is helping run the project. Grube is growing five varieties of sunflowers to see which is best for biodiesel production. Sunflowers were chosen because they grow well in New Hampshire and have a higher yield of biodiesel per acre than other things, such as soybeans.

Different varieties grow to different sizes and, more importantly, die off and dry at different rates. Many of the fields were distinctly brown this week. The brilliant yellow the sunflowers had earlier in the summer was dead and gone.

Now Grube and farmer Dorn Cox, who built the mobile biodiesel manufacturing station, are waiting for the sunflowers to dry out. Once they're done drying, which is expected to happen at the end of this month, the sunflowers will be harvested and their seeds used to make oil.

Another field of sunflowers was planted later and won't be ready to harvest for another couple months.

That oil will then be cycled through the biodiesel station. It will be heated, circulated through numerous tanks and processed until it is turned into the alternative fuel.

They are expecting to yield 130 gallons of biodiesel per acre of sunflowers.

Estimates have farmers using approximately 10 percent of the biodiesel they create to power their farm equipment.

The rest is excess that could be used to heat farmer's homes, fuel their cars or the other myriad things that diesel fuel can do. UNH already uses biodiesel to power its buses and in August opened a biodiesel fueling station on campus.

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