Energy equipment and waste disposal solutions provider Bio-Dynamic Fuel (BDF) is focusing on partnering with food service and retail businesses to deploy the company’s waste disposal and renewable-energy solutions on a national level.

The company’s technology entails converting used cooking oil into biodiesel.

“Our technology is disruptive in that it empowers outlets to recycle used cooking oil on site into biodiesel, which they can use in diesel-powered equipment or vehicles. BDF competes with used cooking oil collectors, large-scale biofuel refineries and diesel supply pricing,” states BDF sales director Shaun Dalrymple.

The programme will also focus on the company’s developed B-Tech 40 ℓ processor and chemical mix, which converts 40 ℓ of used cooking oil into biofuel in less than eight hours.

“The B-Tech 40 technology has a proven record and continuous improvement has been applied for early prototypes. The short-term priority is to roll out this technology to the food service and retail industry with our existing trading partners,” notes Dalrymple.

Medium- to large-scale used cooking oil food producers form the majority of BDF’s core clients, hence the company has focused deployment of this technology at whole companies, as opposed to focusing on individual outlets within large companies. Dalrymple highlights that this is done to ensure that the technology is used across organisations and on a national level.

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The history of biofuel production in Africa is marked with expensive and damaging failures.

The much-hyped jatropha crop saw millions of dollars and vast tracts of land squandered, while the production of palm oil has been widely criticized for association with environmental damage and human rights abuses.
But there is a new hope for the field. The Croton megalocarpus tree is common throughout much of East and Central Africa, and until now it has been used for little more than firewood.
The nuts of the tree have been shown to contain high concentrations of oil and protein, and they are now being used to produce a fuel that could serve as a clean alternative to diesel.

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On Boeing’s 100th anniversary, South African Airways celebrated Africa’s first sustainable biofuel flight. The flight from Johannesburg to Cape Town, operated by a Boeing 737-800, used biojet fuel produced from Sunchem’s nicotine-free tobacco plant Solaris, refined by AltAir Fuels, and supplied by SkyNRG. Sunchem and SkyNRG are both RSB-certified, and AltAir is in the process of RSB certification.
This flight and project serves as inspiration for others around the world that it is possible to produce environmentally sustainable and socially responsible biofuel that improves lives of many smallholder farmers and helps with job salvation and poverty alleviation. Project Solaris in the Limpopo region is a great example of working in partnership with others to bring workable solutions to South Africa. With Boeing’s support, RSB and WWF-SA are working in this project to ensure smallholders can compete with commercial farming operations in supplying feedstock to biofuel producers.
RSB hopes these positive impacts can be duplicated around the world in various regions with diverse feedstocks, and that there will be more flights like this one so that aviation can become more sustainable and reduce its impact on GHG emissions.

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In its quest of taking technology innovation further, Technology Innovation Agency has published- see attached Call for Proposal Advert- the Biofuel Technology Demonstration Programme “2015” Call for Proposal. The call is opened until the 30th of November 2015.
 
Interested applicants are required to submit completed application through the Grant Management System portal http://gms.tia.org.za/funding.
 
For further information on the call, please contact Ms. Kefiloe Monageng, via email, Kefiloe.monageng@tia.org.za or telephonically (012) 472 2736.

PURPOSE OF THE CALL
TIA is calling for the submission of Statement of Interest that focuses on the demonstration of later (2nd and 3rd)
generation technologies for bio-fuels production, to be considered for support.
PARAMETERS OF THE CALL
The Statement of Interest must meet the following criteria:
• Demonstrate an attractive business case
• Product or service or process development based on a technology innovation
• Have already reached proof of concept
MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS
Applicants other than SCs and HEIs applying for financial assistance from TIA must meet the following
requirements:
• Applicants must be South African citizens with valid Identity
• Already existing legal entities:
• must be registered with CIPC
• the enterprise must be compliant with generally accepted corporate governance practices
appropriate to the client’s legal status
• Applicants must have the necessary contractual capacity to engage with TIA
• All primary technology development activities must be operated within South Africa
• For foreign-owned IP, the IP should be licensed or assigned to a local institution
• Applicants with foreign owned IP must meet the DTI’s Localisation Framework requirements
STATEMENT OF INTEREST WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINT
• Details on the proposed technology innovation
• Intellectual property (IP): specific description of what the IP is, management strategy, IP ownership, proof of
freedom to operate (if available)
• Commercial: Market analysis and business model
• Budget: Budget in alignment to the project plan
• Team: Suitability of team to execute plan
CLOSING DATE: The completed proposals must be submitted through the portal http://gms.tia.org.za/funding
on or before 16H00 (UTC+2:00) on 30 November 2015. Late applications will not be accepted
Biofuels Technology Demonstration Programme
An initiative of the Department of Science and Technology

As project Solaris gains traction, South African Airways (SAA) has made headway on its journey to becoming a biofueled airliner by 2020 through the conversion of nicotine-free Solaris tobacco plants into more environment-friendly jet fuel.
SAA is currently preparing to fuel a domestic test flight early next year, using the first locally produced biofuel from the oil of the inaugural crop from project Solaris, in Marble Hall, Limpopo.

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Boeing and South African Airways (SAA) and SkyNRG announced today they are collaborating to make sustainable aviation biofuel from a new type of tobacco plant. This initiative broadens cooperation between Boeing and SAA to develop renewable jet fuel in ways that support South Africa's goals for public health as well as economic and rural development.

"It's an honor for Boeing to work with South African Airways on a pioneering project to make sustainable jet fuel from an energy-rich tobacco plant," said J. Miguel Santos, managing director for Africa, Boeing International. "South Africa is leading efforts to commercialize a valuable new source of biofuel that can further reduce aviation's environmental footprint and advance the region's economy."

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Farmers and landowners want to lower fuel and feed costs, explore feed and fertilizer co-products, be more self-sufficient, and rely less of fossil fuels. Biomass grass crops can be established on marginal lands and processed as a fuel replacement for heating oil or propane, or as an addition to wood chips or pellets.There are four main models for implementing grass energy on a farm. The models differ from each other in where the grass is grown and processed. Two are closed-loop models, in which the grass is grown and processed on-site, and the others are variations of processing the grass in a central facility and distributing production of the feedstock among regional farms.

Grass fuel can occur as bales that get chopped just prior to combustion or densified fuels like pellets, cubes, or briquettes. The densified fuels are made using machinery that applies high temperature and pressure to the chopped feedstock, pressing it into the desired shape. A series of dies and knives are responsible for cutting the fuel into its desired shape. Each of the four grass energy models, described below, produce one or two of these types of fuel.

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The African Farmers Association of South Africa (Afasa) on Tuesday said it welcomed the announcement made by the Department of Energy that the final biofuels position paper would be published next month, stating that it was ready to meaningfully participate in the first phase of the biofuels industry programme.

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"Currently, three crops are permitted for producing bioethanol, namely sorghum, sugar cane and sugar beet, and three for producing biodiesel, namely canola, sunflower and soya beans. The biofuels pricing framework reference crops will be grain sorghum for bioethanol production and soya beans for biodiesel production."

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To a question on which of the products presented are actually biofuels, the biofuels community should be able to tackle it with no problems, right? Well..., no. In fact, only 22% of the over 450 respondents who have taken it so far got it right ("Ethanol, Methanol, Farnesene"): the vast majority chose "Bioethanol, Biohexanol, EBTE". Apparently they missed the fact there is no such thing as biohexanol, and EBTE (Ethyl tert-butyl ether) is not considered a biofuel as it comes partly from a fossil fuel (isobutylene).

The question is part of a 10 question test developed by Spain based biofuel consulting group Alkol as a general tool to check on the state of the industry. The test, which is free and available at http://www.globalbiobusiness.com/nav.asp?l=37 covers all aspects of biofuels, such as feedstocks, carbon credits, generations, algae, cellulosic, etc, and is available in 3 languages (english, spanish, portuguese), in order to cover the major biofuel markets (USA, Brazil, and Europe). The questionnaire also asks for name, years in industry, company focus, role in company, and email, but in order to keep privacy none of those are actually required.

And the more people that take the test, the more interesting things become. Like in the question on GHG gases being responsible for SMOG, Global warming, Acid Rain, or All of the above, in which the vast majority chose "All of the above". That seems to show there is a general confusion between global warming and contamination, since GHG gases are only responsible for global warming, which has nothing to do with contamination.

Also, it is rather troublesome for the industry the fact that the general grade was just 5,3. In fact, the company is thinking about using it as an assesment tool to job candidates and people who are considering taking one of the courses it offers, such as 2nd generation ethanol.

Still, to its creator, Al Costa, founder of Spain based biofuels consulting group Alkol, "It is all in good fun, and in no way meant to be scientific or anything like that. We just hope it sheds some light on the state of the industry and in doing so it becomes useful somehow."

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