Brookhaven to test jatropha oil in boiler

Posted April 20, 2010

Brookhaven National Laboratory is working with SG Biofuels to evaluate the combustion properties of jatropha oil. The Upton, N.Y.-based lab selected SG Biofuels to supply seeds and oil from its Latin American jatropha plantations.

C.R. Krishna, Brookhaven's lead biodiesel researcher, told Biodiesel Magazine how Brookhaven came to choose SG Biofuels as jatropha oil supplier for this new study.

Krishna said when Brookhaven first decided to test jatropha oil, researchers had difficulty obtaining samples. "I couldn't get one," he said. "If you look on the Web, there are all kinds of companies and people that want to sell you jatropha-some in India, some in Thailand-of course some of them wanted me to wire money to them first," he laughed. "Finally I got word of SG Biofuels, they are an American company, and we started talking."

Brookhaven has studied combustion and emissions properties of biodiesel-blended heating oil for years, and it will now use the same commercial boiler it used for previous studies to test residual fuel oil blended with jatropha oil in varying blends.

"I suggested Bioheat 15 years ago but no one wanted to listen," Krishna said. "If we're looking at biodiesel, we should also be looking at the base oils-it's cheaper."

Residential oilheat furnaces are not set up to burn blends of straight vegetable oil because atomizers have trouble with the higher viscosity of SVO, but Krishna said commercial boilers can handle the thicker fuel.

Funding for this jatropha study is coming from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.

Kirk Haney, president and CEO of SG Biofuels, said, "As we continue our scientific and genetic efforts to enhance jatropha across a number of traits, including yield, climate tolerance and improved agronomic inputs, it's important that we continue to benchmark oil quality and performance. This partnership will provide valuable third-party research and analysis as we continue our efforts to develop elite cultivars of jatropha."

Krishna said SG Biofuels has already sent an initial sample to the lab, which was tested in a small experiment. He's expecting drum-sized quantities of jatropha oil from SG Biofuels in the next week or two. He said he will be likely testing blends of jatropha oil at 10 and 30 percent, and 100 percent too if enough jatropha oil is left toward completion of the study.