By ANN HINCH
Assistant Editor

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — If you happen to be in Lafayette, Ind., on Oct. 2 to shop, you may also pick up a practical education in an afternoon at the Tippecanoe Mall, where Ivy Tech Community College plans to display the fruits of teacher-student work in biofuel-friendly vehicles.

One will be a Chevy pickup with an engine converted to switch back and forth between compressed natural gas (CNG) and E85. Ivy Tech-Lafayette alt-fuel instructor Reed Cooper talked briefly about the class project recently at a Central Indiana Clean Cities Alliance (CICCA) workshop that focused on biofuel.

“It’s exciting to work with them and get a chance to make some things move forward that we haven’t had a chance to do before,” said Kellie Walsh, CICCA executive director.

Ivy Tech and CICCA first crossed paths at a training consortium. For three years they have partnered to give students in automotive and chemical technologies hands-on learning in working with biofuel and the machines burning it. Cooper explained how the two departments within the school depend on one another.

“Before we brought (any related project) to fruition, we had to check with Chem Tech,” he said.

The students began working with biodiesel about 18 months ago, he said. This fall, Ivy Tech added sustainable energy to its curriculum to encompass non-fuel renewable energy such as solar, wind and geothermal.

Students can also learn biotechnology, which Chem Tech Program Chair Doug Schauer described simply as the manipulation of genetic material for production.

Dean Glen Roberson of the Schools of Applied Science, Engineering and Technology said Ivy Tech and Purdue University received a joint $6.1 million grant to focus on electric vehicles and development of lithium-ion batteries for vehicles. Access to such grants are one way the partnership with CICCA benefits Ivy Tech; another is having experts like Walsh and others speak at school.
One way the school returns the favor, according to Schauer, is by aiding Indiana businesses making their own biodiesel for a company fleet by testing the fuel. If the company is having problems with engine performance or batches of biodiesel are turning out too soapy, for example, Schauer and his pupils can advise better processing methods.

This is service learning for the students, he said, and it’s also incentive to keep companies focused on using biodiesel rather than giving up and going back to conventional diesel fuel.

Schauer explained diesel engines can operate on straight vegetable oil – what one buys in the grocery – since Rudolph Diesel designed his engine in the 1800s to run on peanut oil.
The problem is the oil has larger molecules that make it more viscous than petroleum fuel, clogging the fuel injector. Making biodiesel renders the oil less viscous.

“Making biodiesel oil from vegetable oil you get off the shelf is easier than baking a cake,” Schauer said.

In Lafayette, Ivy Tech has partnered with Cracker Barrel to receive the restaurant’s used cooking oil to convert to biodiesel. The used oil is a real education for Chem Tech students, he explained, because it’s been heated repeatedly, which decomposes it and makes conversion trickier.

At Ivy Tech, Schauer said academic departments cooperate to give all students working with renewable energy an understanding outside their immediate expertise. For example, he sends his to Cooper’s classes to see how the biodiesel they make is used in engines, and vice versa. An agriculture instructor plans to farm two acres of soybeans that will be processed to provide soy oil for biodiesel production on campus – to be used in school machines such as the tractor used for farming.

Even the HVAC program benefits, since Cooper explained biodiesel can be used for heating. In fact, he said 90 percent of global biodiesel use goes for home heating, and Japan and India are big users. He said a Long Island study showed B30 could be substituted for conventional heating fuels in a home, with no noticeable difference.

Already, according to Frontier Energy, Maine uses three times as much biodiesel for home heating as for transportation, Cooper said. For his own part, he burns B100 (pure biodiesel) to heat his home shop and barn.

Multiple uses for various cleaner-burning biofuel is a core part of CICCA’s reason for being. “I like to say, there’s no one silver bullet,” Walsh said. “There’s a lot of silver BBs we need to do to help lessen our dependence” on petroleum-based fuel.
At the Tippecanoe Mall display Oct. 2, in addition to converted vehicles, Schauer will be conducting mini-sessions on biofuel.
For directions to the noon-4 p.m. event, visit online at www.simon.com/mall/event_details.aspx?ID=171&EID=111778