Boreskov Institute of Catalysis SB RAS, Novosibirsk, Russia

PL-2ENVIRONMENTALLY SUSTAINABLE BIOFUELS:ADVANCES IN BIODIESEL RESEARCHPalligarnai T. Vasudevan, Robert C. DavisonUniversity of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824, USA. E-mail: vasu@unh.eduDue to diminishing petroleum reserves and the deleterious environmentalconsequences of exhaust gases from fossil-based fuels, research on renewable fuelshas received a lot of impetus in recent years. With oil at high prices, alternaterenewable energy has become very attractive. Besides ethanol, other unconventionalchoices are: biodiesel made from non-edible sources or waste cooking oil;biobutanol; and gas-to-liquids from the abundance of natural gas, coal, or biomass.Current research on the synthesis of biodiesel can be classified into five areas: i) thesource of substrates, namely triglyceride and acyl-acceptors, ii) reaction mechanism,iii) catalysts for transesterification, including the application of inorganic base andacid catalysts as well as biocatalysts, iv) solvent effects on biodiesel synthesis,especially in enzyme-catalyzed processes, and v) operations and reactors involvingtraditional batch reactors, continuous reactors, novel membrane reactors and microchannelreactors. In this presentation, we examine advances made inenvironmentally friendly fuels such as biodiesel in recent years and also thechallenges we face in the production of biodiesel.6