Utah State Team Sets New Speed Record on Waste-Based Biodiesel
by Ron Kotrba (Biodiesel Magazine) A team of faculty and students from Utah State University set a land speed record this month in a student-built car run on biodiesel fuel also produced by the students. The team, from the Colleges of Science, Engineering and Agriculture at USU, performed at the World of Speed event at the Bonneville Flats Speedway in Utah.
The car was driven by Michael R. Morgan—an undergraduate biochemistry major at USU, director of the Student Prototype Laboratory and project initiator—who completed two passes on the Salt Flats course.
…(T)he yeast-derived biodiesel is made from the liquid waste coming from the cheese-making industry. “These are oleaginous yeast that upgrade the sugars in the waste to triglycerides,” he said. “We convert the triglycerides using a patent-pending process to fatty acid methyl esters. We ran this B100 in the streamliner to back up our record and it performed wonderfully. We have done extensive testing of the fuel, including performance in a dnyo and emissions, and it matches the properties of soybean B100.” READ MORE
