Peugeot to launch flex-fuel models in Europe, via used car market in Africa
Quicknote biofuels technology
Peugeot SA said it favours the French government's efforts to promote the use of flex-fuel motors, and will introduce next year two models able to run on gasoline as well as E85, a biofuel consisting of 85% ethanol. Peugeot already produces flex-fuel versions of its cars in Brazil, which represent 80% of its total sales in the country. The Peugeot 307 and the Citroen C4 will be offered with flex-fuel motors from mid-2007 throughout Europe, a company spokesman said.
Peugeot considers that a widespread introduction of small quantities of ethanol in gasoline, which could be done without changing existing engines, would be 'the most efficient and least expensive' option for increasing biofuel use, the spokesman said. Standard Peugeot engines in Europe can already accept up to 10 pct ethanol in gasoline, while its diesel engines can run on a mix of up to 30 pct biofuel made from rapeseed, a combination known as 'diester'. The French government wants biofuels to represent 5.75 pct of total consumption at filling stations across France in 2008, two years ahead of a deadline called for by the European Commission.
Via a detour, this news is important to people in francophone West and Central Africa, where the vast used car market, which is many times bigger than the market for new cars (earlier post), is dominated by french brands Peugeot, Citroën and Renault. (For an anthropological study on this fascinating market, see "Cotonou's klondike : a sociological analysis of entrepreneurship in the Euro-West African second-hand car trade" [*.pdf], by economic anthropologist Jan Joost Beuving). Most car owners in this part of the world drive second hand cars and no major car manufacturer has production plants on the continent. Given this reality, the introduction of flex-fuel cars in Africa will happen via the European used car market. Flex-fuel cars are expected to capture a significant market share of European car sales over the coming years. It then takes between 5 and 10 years before these used flex-fuel cars would appear in French speaking West and Central Africa. [entry ends here].
ethanol :: biodiesel :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: sustainability :: flex-fuel :: Europe :: Africa ::
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Peugeot SA said it favours the French government's efforts to promote the use of flex-fuel motors, and will introduce next year two models able to run on gasoline as well as E85, a biofuel consisting of 85% ethanol. Peugeot already produces flex-fuel versions of its cars in Brazil, which represent 80% of its total sales in the country. The Peugeot 307 and the Citroen C4 will be offered with flex-fuel motors from mid-2007 throughout Europe, a company spokesman said.
Peugeot considers that a widespread introduction of small quantities of ethanol in gasoline, which could be done without changing existing engines, would be 'the most efficient and least expensive' option for increasing biofuel use, the spokesman said. Standard Peugeot engines in Europe can already accept up to 10 pct ethanol in gasoline, while its diesel engines can run on a mix of up to 30 pct biofuel made from rapeseed, a combination known as 'diester'. The French government wants biofuels to represent 5.75 pct of total consumption at filling stations across France in 2008, two years ahead of a deadline called for by the European Commission.
Via a detour, this news is important to people in francophone West and Central Africa, where the vast used car market, which is many times bigger than the market for new cars (earlier post), is dominated by french brands Peugeot, Citroën and Renault. (For an anthropological study on this fascinating market, see "Cotonou's klondike : a sociological analysis of entrepreneurship in the Euro-West African second-hand car trade" [*.pdf], by economic anthropologist Jan Joost Beuving). Most car owners in this part of the world drive second hand cars and no major car manufacturer has production plants on the continent. Given this reality, the introduction of flex-fuel cars in Africa will happen via the European used car market. Flex-fuel cars are expected to capture a significant market share of European car sales over the coming years. It then takes between 5 and 10 years before these used flex-fuel cars would appear in French speaking West and Central Africa. [entry ends here].
ethanol :: biodiesel :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: sustainability :: flex-fuel :: Europe :: Africa ::
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Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Cellulosic ethanol residues can be turned into valuable bioproducts
Paul Weimer, a research microbiologist at the USDA-ARS Dairy Forage Research Center and associate professor of bacteriology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, took a closer look at the fermentation residue left-over from 'second generation' ethanol produced from the enzymatic breakdown of cellulose, and found a useful application in the form of adhesives. This is especially important because cellulosic ethanol remains a costly biofuel and finding value in byproducts could make its economics more viable.
So rather than dwelling on finding ways to squeeze extra ethanol out of biomass from crops such as switchgrass, Weimer is concentrating his research on the leftovers. He thinks that the large heap of fermentation residue from the ethanol-making process — what many people consider a byproduct — could be far more valuable than the ethanol itself.
"A lot of people want to do the same thing with biomass material that we've been doing with corn," says Weimer. "They want to hit it with enzymes to break it down into sugars, and ferment those sugars into ethanol. The problem with this is that the enzymes needed to break down celluose biomass are very expensive, and they don't work nearly as effectively as the enzymes used to convert starch." In fact, Weimer adds, both corn and cellulosic biomass must be subjected to costly pretreatment to maximize the ethanol yield. "Our philosophy is a little bit different," Weimer says. "We think that the fermentation residue may actually be more valuable than the ethanol. And it may mean that we can do without pretreatment."
He came to this conclusion as he took a closer look at the residue — the fermentation leftovers. He determined that the organisms that he uses to convert biomass do their job by sticking to the cellulose fibers with a glue-like substance called a glycocalyx. "Because glycocalyx works so effectively at holding organisms to cellulose material, we found that we couldn't get the glue off of the fibers without destroying the glue," Weimer says. "So, we took the entire fermentation mixture — the glue, plus the bacteria, plus the rest of the cellulosic biomass — and used it as an adhesive." Specifically, they used it as wood glue:
ethanol :: biomass :: biofuels :: sustainability :: cellulosic :: adhesives :: byproducts :: green chemistry ::
To explore the glue's potential as value-added product for biomass crops, Weimer set out to test it by enlisting help from a research team at the USDA Forest Products Lab led by adhesive scientist Chuck Frihart. Their primary performance concerns were pressure and durability in wet conditions.
"One of the biggest drawbacks of any bio-based adhesive is that it will stick stuff together well but falls apart once it gets wet," Weimer says.
While Weimer's bio-based adhesive does have this problem if used as a standalone product, it works well when mixed with another adhesive, a commonly used petroleum-based resin. In some applications the researchers have successfully used a mix in which up to 73 percent of the resin was replaced with the bio-based adhesive.
Although the adhesive appears to have great potential, there are still a few hurdles. For one, it's quite viscous. For use in an industrial application, the glue would need to be made easier to apply. A second challenge is to bring the process to a larger scale. A third is to develop formulations that incorporate the bio-based glue into other types of adhesive mixtures. These challenges, says Weimer, will simply take time.
Weimer hopes to get the wood products industry interested in replacing half of the phenol formaldehyde (PF), a petroleum-based adhesive now used to make plywood, with the biomass-based adhesive.
"The PF that the fermentation process would partially replace sells for considerably more that ethanol, and the fermentation would still generate ethanol on the side," he says.
But the economic incentive is only part of the picture, according to Weimer.
"We'd like to keep alfalfa on the landscape because it has a lot of environmental benefits," Weimer says. "It's a good cover crop, it's drought-tolerant and fixes nitrogen. But because farmers are moving away from it as a dairy feed, we're trying to find another use, and we think this glue might be a solution."
More information:
P. J. Weimer, R. G. Koegel, L. F. Lorenz, C. R. Frihart, W. R. Kenealy: Wood adhesives prepared from lucerne fiber fermentation residues of Ruminococcus albus and Clostridium thermocellum, [*.pdf] Appl. Microbiol. Biotechnol. (2005) 66: 635–640.
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posted by Biopact team at 4:22 PM 0 comments links to this post