Around the world in 360 days by car – with ion exchange resins and expertise from LANXESS

Compact on-board unit turns used vegetable oil into eco-friendly biodiesel

Leverkusen – Japanese photojournalist Shusei Yamada is on another Biodiesel Adventure Tour. After completing his eco-friendly around-the-world journey in an SUV with the help of biodiesel refined on the go, he is now traveling through the rural regions of his home country. An on-board, ultra-compact production unit provides the fuel: biodiesel made of waste vegetable oil used for frying in households and restaurants. Largely responsible for the innovative technology is specialty chemicals group LANXESS. "LANXESS provided ion exchange resins and technical support that allowed me to forego the use of fossil fuel and instead run my Land Cruiser on biodiesel refined on the go‚" said Yamada. Lewatit GF202 ion exchange resin from LANXESS played a crucial part in the project.

The idea for the project was conceived in 2005 when Yamada first became interested in biodiesel as a future source of energy. With eco-fuels a hot topic of late, Yamada’s aim was to prove that biodiesel could be an effective source of future energy by gathering readily available vegetable oil on his journey and refining it into fuel to power his vehicle. While showing that one man could indeed do something to slow the advance of global warming and protect the environment, he also wanted his journey to be a discovery of what people of different backgrounds, languages, and cultures can achieve if they communicate and work together.

But to circle the globe making biodiesel on the go required a production unit compact enough to fit in a passenger vehicle. After seeking the advice of numerous experts on the subject of refining used vegetable oil to make biodiesel, Yamada discovered that just such a compact device could be made if it used a filter of LANXESS’s Lewatit GF202 ion exchange resin to remove the impurities generated in the refining process. Yamada spent 10 months investigating aspects like the precise refining temperature and the exact amount of oil to filter at one time. His efforts were rewarded when he perfected the biodiesel refining unit in November 2007.

After leaving Japan on December 5, 2007, the “Biodiesel Adventure” project made a brief stop in Canada before heading across the U.S.A., then to Europe, Africa, central Asia, and finally traversing Russia. By the time it arrived at its final destination of Tokyo on December 1, 2008, it had passed through 17 countries and covered a total of 47,853 km over 360 days. LANXESS’s Lewatit GF202 ion exchange resin was with Yamada throughout the whole journey.

Ion exchange resins are primarily used to purify water. Lewatit GF202 is a premium product for removing glycerin, salts and soaps from unrefined biodiesel. Its high absorption capacity for impurities enables the construction of ultra-compact systems.

The refining of biodiesel begins by filtering used vegetable oil to remove impurities. Then methanol and potassium hydroxide catalyst are added to produce biodiesel. Glycerin is formed as a byproduct. The biodiesel is separated from glycerin in a centrifugal separator and then passed through Lewatit GF 202 and several carbon filters. The end result is eco-friendly biodiesel fuel.

Besides providing Yamada with Lewatit GF202, LANXESS offered a wide range of technical support that proved invaluable in making the compact biodiesel fuel production unit, including advice on the ideal temperature for removing impurities from the vegetable oil. This expertise proved to be a major contribution to turning Yamada's vision into reality and actually building a compact, on-board unit capable of refining 40 liters of biodiesel at a time – and to making the Biodiesel Adventure a success.

Says Yamada: "We undertook this project to show that there is something we as individuals can do for the environment. That being said, the project was only possible with the cooperation of countless people around the world. Without LANXESS’s support, the compact biodiesel refining device might never have been built. Its Lewatit ion exchange resin was crucial to the success of the project."

By supporting the Biodiesel Adventure, LANXESS showed that its ion exchange resins don’t just provide solutions for industrial customers: they also help to alleviate global warming.

For more details go to: http://www.lanxess.cn

Leverkusen, June 2, 2009
bol (2009-00113e)

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