Washington, August 18 (ANI): An Indian-origin scientist along with other colleagues have identified a new and unlikely raw material for the fuel: Alligator fat.
The step comes amid growing concern that using soybeans and other food crops to produce biodiesel fuel will raise the price of food.
So, in a bid to search for non-food sources of biodiesel, Rakesh Bajpai and colleagues realized that alligator fat could be the possible solution for the problem. Each year, the alligator meat industry disposes of about 15 million pounds of alligator fat in landfills.
They showed in laboratory experiments that extracted oil from alligator fat could easily be converted into biodiesel. The oil actually was more suitable for biodiesel production than oil from some other animal fats.
The gator biodiesel was similar in composition to biodiesel from soybeans, and met nearly all of the official standards for high quality biodiesel.
The study has been published in ACS' journal Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research. (ANI)
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