Professor Bernie Tao and his students have developed a refining process that produces B100 biodiesel fuels which remains liquid at extremely cold temperatures down to -57 C. This technology has been patented and trademarked under the name Permaflo.
Several thousand gallons of Permaflo® biodiesel fuel, refined at Integrity Biofuels, an Indiana biodiesel producer, were used around Indiana last winter, as well as being shipped to Alaska last January. In collaboration with the Professor Andrew Soria at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks and sponsored by the Indiana Soybean Alliance (ISA), the Permaflo® refined B100 fuel was used in trucks and buses driven from Anchorage to Fairbanks (during a blizzard that dropped 2 feet of snow in 12 hours), and later up to the Arctic Circle on ice roads, where tests were conducted overnight using pure B100 in diesel electrical generators (while camping in tents on the frozen tundra!). (For those interested, Dr. Tao has a number of colorful stories related to why camping outdoors north of the Arctic Circle in the winter is not a very good idea. For those who watch the Discovery TV Channel, the program Ice Road Truckers in Alaska was ongoing at the same time these tests were being conducted, if you want to see the environment involved in conducting these
tests.) After thawing out and driving back to Fairbanks, Professor Tao and representatives from the ISA met with government and industrial officials and held a seminar in Fairbanks to discuss how this technology could benefit commercial and military users of locally-produced, green biofuels in Alaska. A patent application has been approved on this technology and a commercial bioenergy engineering design company has been engaged to commercialize the Permaflo® refining technology.
Biodiesel is a renewable, environmentally friendly alternative fuel that is made with vegetable oils, animal fats or recycled restaurant greases. In cold conditions, like typical winter conditions, biodiesel fuel has a tendency to gel sooner than regular diesel, blocking filters and causing engine performance problems. This results in biodiesel fuels not being used during winter/cold climate conditions. Professor Tao's refining technology will allow biodiesel fuels to be used year-around and under the coldest winter climates, like at the Arctic Circle!
