Future Fuel

Project serves as a test bed for potential new energy source

There is a program within the Allen E. Paulson College of Engineering and Information Technology (CEIT) that melds the biofuels developed and processed by students in the College’s Renewable Energy Lab with racing vehicles built in the Carruth Building into a single, self-sufficient research project — the Biodiesel Baja Project.

The project is headed on two sides by mechanical engineering professors Brian Vlcek and Vladimir Soloiu. Vlcek oversees the building of the Baja vehicles while Soloiu supervises the production of the biofuels.

“The Bio Baja Project was a test bed for the fuels that we developed here on campus,” Vlcek said. “It was to have our own vehicle that we ran our own fuels in, which kind of closed the loop. Before, we just ran it in engines on dynamometers, which measure load and constraint.”

Vlcek said the Biodiesel Baja Project started in a senior design class in the spring of 2008 with 15 to 18 mechanical engineering technology students who built and designed a vehicle based on the mini Baja competition vehicle. For this project, the vehicle was built slightly larger so it would be able to accommodate multiple engines.

The vehicle also has the ability to use ethanol or alcohol blends. “We wanted to use the 10-horse Briggs & Stratton for the competition-style engine, and then we also wanted to put a diesel engine in it so we could change the engines in the vehicle,” said Vlcek.

The senior design class finished the project that year with a vehicle that ran on either a 10-horsepower Briggs and Stratton engine or 17-horsepower engine with the capability of running alcohol blends.

Vlcek said that it wasn’t until a year later that graduate student Chris Long, then a junior mechanical engineering major, wrote a proposal, with Vlcek as his faculty advisor, to the CEIT’s Office of Undergraduate Research for funding to cover the purchase of a diesel engine, because most of the fuels that were being produced in the lab at that time were diesel-based biofuels. The proposal was a success and he, with the help of some additional funding from the department, was able to acquire the engine for about $2,400, Vlcek said.

Long and a small group of students modified the mountings on the vehicle to make the engine fit and began making fuel out of peanut oil.

In addition to that, Soloiu said the engine also runs off of fuels made from cotton seed oil and poultry fat — all produced in the department’s Renewable Energy Lab.

Soloiu said of the Renewable Energy Lab, “It is state-of the-art. It has the most advanced combustion, emissions and biofuels in the Southeast.”

Soloiu said that one of the main advantages of this project is that all the biofuels are created from products obtained from Georgia farmers and that these products are needed.

The peanuts used to make the oil have been rejected by the market and have been deemed unfit for human consumption; the poultry fat comes from the poultry industry and is usually fed to other chickens; and the cotton seeds have a low germination rate, resulting in an inability to yield crops if planted.

By utilizing fuel sources that are not fit to be sold on the commercial market to produce biofuels, the Biodiesel Baja Project is helping create what Soloiu calls “more efficient, cleaner, greener” fuels.

—Matthew D’La Rotta