LIFE02 ENV/E/000253 Collecting used cooking oils to be recycled as bio-fuel

Contacts
Website: www.ecobus.info




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LIFE Projects : Liquid Biofuels and Biogas : Process Engineering : Vegetable Oil/Fat

Type of Project	Demonstration
Contract No	LIFE02 ENV/E/000253
Total Cost	11,350 KEuro
EC Contribution	9,380 KEuro
Start Date	1-6-2004
Duration	48 Months

Abstract

This is a pilot project that collected used vegetal oil used in cooking and turnied it into biodiesel, to be used in the urban buses of Valencia. The project had as a main objective the removal of a waste, the used vegetal oil, by turning it into a resource, biodiesel.

Used cooking oil is a waste material that is found everywhere in the EU and for which few collection schemes or recovery options exist. The ECOBUS project has implemented a pilot scheme for using recycled vegetable oil to fuel part of the city of Valencia's public bus fleet.

The most common method for disposing of used vegetable oil is simply to pour it into the sewage system. This is an illegal practice that causes many problems, including the clogging of the system, which can lead to malfunctions in its filters and oil/water separators. However, cooking oil can be recycled into an environmentally-friendly fuel for use in diesel engines.

This has been successfully demonstrated. The project initially involved the collection of cooking oil used for domestic purposes for re-use as bio-fuel to power the buses serving the city centre. The project was later extended to include frying oils from the city's hotels, catering and food services sectors. All participating establishments were given containers for collecting the used oil. The oil was collected by the municipality, and sent to a transformation plant to produce an eco-diesel fuel mix for use by the city's bus fleet.

On average, over the two-year period, approximately 100 litres/month of domestic and commercial waste oil were collected. By the end of the project, 800 commercial outlets and private homes had collected a total of around 800,000 litres of used cooking oil. Tests were performed, running engines on the bio-diesel under controlled operating conditions. Data were gathered on the effects of different mixtures of bio-diesel fuel with respect to polluting emissions, as well as engine performance and durability. Altogether, 322,654 litres of eco-diesel was used by 120 of the municipality's fleet of 480 buses.

The project's direct positive impacts on the environment included preventing the dumping of a significant amount of vegetable oil into the public drainage system, thereby improving the sewer system's functioning and helping to reduce its infestation by rodents. At the same time, the use of the bio- diesel fuel helped reduce the emission of atmospheric contaminants from EMT bus exhausts.

Contacts

Contact

• Ramón Ruiz HERNANDEZ / Empresa Municipal de Transportes de Valencia SPAIN