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"Biofuels are made from a range of different vegetables and
animal fats," said Alan Hansen, a professor in agricultural and
biological engineering at the U of I. "And one of the properties
of a biofuel that determines how efficiently an engine runs is
its fatty acid composition."
As it turns out, palm oil, which may be regarded as unhealthy
for humans because of its abundance of saturated fatty acids,
makes a good biofuel. But polyunsaturates, which are healthier
for humans, "are not good for engines because they lower the
cetane number, or the ignition quality, of the fuel
dramatically," Hansen said. "So it would seem that what's good
for food is not necessarily good for fuel."
Hansen is investigating the properties of different
biofuels, he said, "because they are used in combustion
modeling exercises and experiments, and we want to be able to
model the combustion of these different biofuels as accurately
as possible."
Hansen is working with researchers from the department of
mechanical science and engineering to study a variety of issues
related to the automotive combustion of biofuels. The group
recently received a grant from the Department of Energy to fund
the new Graduate Automotive Technology Education
Center
of Excellence on Advanced Automotive Bio-Fuel Combustion
Engines.
Chia-Fon Lee, a professor in mechanical science and
engineering, is the center director. Lee and three colleagues in
the department -- Professor Dimitrios Kyritsis, Professor Emeritus
Robert White and Robert Coverdill, senior research engineer --
are all working on developing engines that will burn biofuel
more efficiently.
One of the engines they use is an optical engine, said Lee.
"It has a quartz piston at the top, and a side window that
allows you to look into the combustion chamber. There is also a
mirror arrangement that allows you to see underneath the
engine."
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 This type of visual access to the process allows the researchers
to watch as the fuel is injected into the combustion chamber.
Even though you can see through it, said Lee, everything happens
so fast that laser equipment is needed to take images that track the
combustion process.
"You can see how much remains as liquid, how much turns into
vapor and how much it penetrates into the combustion chamber -- all
characteristics that are important to determine the combustion,"
said Lee.
Funding from the Department of Energy will allow Lee and Hansen
to work with the GATE Center of Excellence for the next five years,
and Lee says there is a possibility of an additional five years of
funding.
"The GATE project has an educational component that we didn't
have in the past," Lee said. "Now we are able to train talented
graduate students in both mechanical and agricultural-biological
issues related to automotive biofuel combustion. We are also
conducting a GATE seminar series that presents information you can't
find in the textbooks. Even the professors get a lot out of it."
Hansen concluded, "With all the interest in biofuels at the
moment, it's a great opportunity to see how we can take advantage of
the new technologies to get an engine to run on biofuel more
efficiently."
(Text from file received from
the University
of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental
Sciences)
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