The Indian experience

A few Indian companies have attempted to process bio-diesel in a small way and use it in their vehicles. The most prominent among them being DaimlerChrysler India (subsidiary of the German company) and Mahindra & Mahindra.

DaimlerChrysler AG and DaimlerChrysler India with their partners — Central Salt and Marine Chemicals Research Institute (CSMCRI) and the University of Hohenheim — have been working with bio-diesel processed from the seeds of the Jatropha plant. The project, which is in its second and final phase, has been partly financed by Deutsche Investitions and Entwicklungsgesellschaft (DEG).

Since 2004, the Jatropha Biodiesel project by DaimlerChrysler and its partners has generated public interest in alternative energy sources, particularly bio-diesel, and community-wide support, mainly because the Jatropha plant can grow on wasteland. The project also included field-tests with Mercedes-Benz cars powered by pure (unblended) bio-diesel across nine States in 2004. This was followed by cold weather, high altitude tests of the bio-diesel cars across Khardung La, the highest motorable road in the world, and across the Himalayan terrain in 2005. This was a significant road test, as bio-diesel is said to be unsuitable for use as automotive fuel in low temperatures. The inputs from these road tests paved the way for further improvements to characteristics of bio-diesel from Jatropha.

Tough Plant

Jatropha is a species of plant that occurs in the wild in many parts of India, and the oil extracted from its seeds has been found to be suitable for conversion into bio-diesel. Jatropha can grow on poor, degraded soils and is able to ensure a reasonable production of seeds with little input. It is not grazed by animals and is highly pest and disease resistant.

DaimlerChrysler has had a long history of developing alternative fuel vehicles, including cars that run on hydrogen and other non-traditional fuels. With the methanol-powered NECAR fuel-cell vehicles, the German company had presented passenger cars suited for bio-methanol refuelling. Bio-methanol can also be blended with conventional gasoline and refuelled to conventional internal combustion engines, to a certain extent without engine modifications being necessary. The same holds true for bio-diesel, for example, from Jatropha biomass. Blending would require no new refuelling infrastructure.

Recently, M&M also formally announced its emphasis on bio-diesel and unveiled the bio-diesel Scorpio and Bolero DI vehicles for 100 per cent real world usage trials. The Scorpio, with indigenously developed CRDE technology, is said to be the first Asian vehicle in its class to run on 100 per cent bio-diesel. M&M also unveiled a 5 per cent bio-diesel tractor along with its utility vehicles, another first in the country.

Mahindra & Mahindra has organised two projects as part of its bio-diesel programme, one in conjunction with the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and the other with Indian Oil Corporation's R&D Centre and Lubrizol.

The vehicles are to be run in real world environment that will involve severe and demanding terrain including hot and cold weather operations at high altitudes. M&M has done extensive R&D work in the area of alternative propulsion technologies and also set up its own bio-diesel pilot plant in 2001.

Bio-diesel — a compelling alternative

One of the provisions of Budget 2007-08 extends the benefit of excise duty exemption to bio-diesel. Now, many of us know bio-diesel to be some kind of alternative fuel. But what exactly is it? What is it got out of and how good an alternative is it to the regular fuels? Will vehicles need considerable alterations to run on bio-diesel? These are the questions many will be asking after Mr P. Chidambaram put bio-diesel in the spotlight last month.

What is bio-diesel?

Bio-diesel is a clean burning alternative diesel fuel that is obtained from natural, renewable sources such as vegetable oils and fats. The most common source of bio-diesel is soybean. Soya oil is the base vegetable oil from which all the bio-diesel in the US is processed. On the other hand, in Europe, most of the bio-diesel is processed from rapeseed oil.

In India, a mix of these two and also the oil extracted from the nuts of the Jatropha plant have been used to obtain bio-diesel. Around the world other oils of plant origin, such as canola oil, cottonseed oil, mustard oil and palm oil, have also been tried.

Bio-diesel is a cleaner burning fuel than the regular fossil fuel, not just in India, where the quality of regular diesel is relatively speaking poor, but also in the advanced automobile markets. Bio-diesel, as the name suggests, is also renewable as it is derived from plant sources and is less harmful to the environment.

How is bio-diesel obtained?

Bio-diesel, or alkyl/methyl esters as it is also known, is produced through a chemical process called transesterification, which usually involves the addition of alcohol. The process leads to the separation of glycerine from the oil and the end product is methyl esters or bio-diesel.

Bio-diesel burns better than conventional diesel and is extremely low on sulphur content, one of the biggest problems oil companies producing fossil fuel have to deal with. Since bio-diesel is plant derived, it is also high on oxygen content.

As a result, bio-diesel is less toxic and less polluting than regular diesel. When used in conventional diesel engines the improved quality of emissions with bio-diesel include lower levels of carbon-monoxide, sulphates, particulate matter and unburned hydrocarbons.

Can it substitute regular diesel?

This alternative fuel can be used in all the compression-ignition engines (as diesel engines are called), in which the regular fossil fuel is used. Most modern-day diesel engines can handle a blend of the regular fuel that contains up to 20 per cent of bio-diesel. At that level of blending, engines do not need major modifications or adjustments.

Bio-diesel blends, for example B20 (which is the nomenclature for a 20 per cent blend) and for than matter B100 (which is pure bio-diesel), have pretty much the same performance properties as the regular diesel fuel.

So, there is no reduction in the torque characteristics of the engine and the other performance parameters also remain unaffected.

Even when pure bio-diesel is used, many diesel engines will not require modifications, though car manufacturers are still studying the impact of the use of B100 on engine durability.

Viability

Unlike the other alternative fuel — bio-ethanol from sugarcane — bio-diesel has not picked up that much in terms of production volumes. It continues to be attempted only on a small scale for experimental purposes. The Government has cleared ethanol blending with regular petrol, but it is yet to take off due to a number of reasons, including arriving at a viable price for the fuel manufacturers and the worries about the possibility of adulteration at the blending stage. The government's blending norms already exist for B20.

As for bio-diesel, since production of fuel alone may not render the enterprise profitable and therefore sustainable, processors of this alternative fuel will have to also consider generating revenue from by-products such as glycerine, seed cake, fertiliser, etc.

So far, the only stumbling block for the adoption of bio-diesel, as was the case with the other alternative fuel, was the non-availability of any fiscal incentives for increased production. With increased public awareness, there will be no hesitancy among diesel car owners to fill up B20 at the local pump. Will the Budget sop kick-start the process?