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Permaflo Biodiesel beats cold Arctic Circle temps

By JANE HOUIN
Ohio Correspondent

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The Indiana Soybean Alliance (ISA) recently put its newly-developed Permaflo biodiesel to the test: It took 250 gallons of the cold-climate biofuel to the Arctic Circle to document how it performs in some of the harshest winter conditions.

Alaska winters are so harsh that Alaskans don’t use traditional diesel No. 2 or even No. 1 (kerosene) – they use JP8 or jet fuel.
ISA partnered with the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the Alaska Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station (AFES) and Purdue University to road-test Permaflo Biodiesel (see related article). The trip was documented by a film crew and real-time reports and photos have been posted on ISA’s website.

ISA has been funding the work on Permaflo for the last five years to help address the critical need for consistent product quality in the growing biodiesel industry. The fuel is capable of working at temperatures below –67 degrees Fahrenheit without gelling.
ISA has been funding work on this technology at Purdue University for the last five years, said Megan Kuhn, ISA communications director.

“When it came time that we had a quantity of Permaflo Biodiesel from a full-scale production facility, we knew we needed to test it in the ‘real world,’” Kuhn said. “While we do have some of the fuel running in vehicles here in the state, the real test is extreme cold temperatures that we don’t normally have here in Indiana.”

That was when Bernie Tao, an agricultural engineering professor at Purdue who researched the Permaflo production process, contacted some folks in extension in Alaska, who put him in contact with the UAF faculty. Researchers at UAF and AFES joined ISA farmer-directors and Tao, also the ISA professor in soybean utilization at Purdue, on March 4-9 to “road test” Permaflo in transportation and stationary power generation.

“In Alaska we ran two vehicles and a stationary generator on a 100 percent soy biodiesel blend, 100 percent vegetable oil,” ISA President and Grant County farmer Doug Morrow said. “That’s never been done before in these cold temperatures. We were confident we were not going to have any trouble with the fuel, using this process.”

They made no special allowances for the biodiesel; the tote containing the fuel was shipped from Indiana to Anchorage, where it sat outside, unheated, until it was pumped into the two vehicles and a storage fuel tank in the back of the pickup truck. The fuel rode back there and was pumped directly into the generator, which started up with no problem at the Arctic Circle after sitting in the back of the truck for several days in cold temperatures.

The group drove two vehicles running on 100 percent Permaflo (B100) from Anchorage to Fairbanks, a trip of more than 300 miles on the Parks Highway crossing Denali National Park.
One of the vehicles – a minibus – then carried the group an additional 200 miles to the Arctic Circle, where they camped overnight in minus-23-degree weather using a generator powered by Permaflo.

Road conditions were somewhat hazardous, according to the group, but there were perks, such as seeing the Northern Lights.
“The low temperature during the camping trip to the Arctic Circle was documented at minus-23 degrees F. We saw temperatures in the teens during our trip from Anchorage to Fairbanks,” Morrow said. “The weather was nasty during the trip along the Parks Highway and Fairbanks had an eight-inch snowfall right before we got there – very unusual for them.”

All in all, the UAF pickup truck used by the group for its travels logged 1,401 miles, with additional mileage on the minibus the group traveled in from Anchorage to Fairbanks.

“Our Arctic Circle group experienced cold like we never have before,” Morrow said. “We went up there to test the Permaflo Biodiesel in some extreme weather conditions, but it was as much of a test for us as it was for the fuel. The Permaflo definitely handled those extreme conditions better than the rest of our team did.”

In addition to the testing, ISA representatives and Tao participated in a Biofuels Symposium hosted by UAF on March 9, where Tao talked about the chemistry behind Permaflo. ISA farmer-directors Morrow and Mike Yoder also spoke about the ISA and Indiana agriculture while John Whittington of Integrity Biofuels and Grammer Industries talked about his experiences in producing the biodiesel that was tested in Alaska.

UAF researchers also shared the work they are doing on alternative fuels. Because many of Alaska’s small towns and villages are “off the electric grid,” their only source of electricity comes from stationary generators fueled with diesel, often delivered on an annual basis by air. One possible solution would be to produce their own biodiesel using Permaflo technology, which would allow them to use local feedstocks to meet their own energy needs.

“It was interesting to see the real interest people have concerning biofuels, especially one that will work in the extreme cold weather and be of consistent quality – two of the limiting factors of biodiesel right now,” said Kuhn. “Also, it was eye-opening to realize that much of Alaska is ‘off the grid’ and runs on diesel-powered generators all year long, a market that we didn’t understand before heading north.”

To learn more about ISA’s “Permaflo Biodiesel Mission: Arctic Circle” trip, visit www.indianasoybean.com for the daily journal and photo diary.

3/18/2009