Polk students turn yesterday's grease into tomorrow's fuel
Senior Mason Umlauf, assisted by biology teacher Kim Mirasola,
performs a titration test prior to producing the school's first batch of
biodiesel from sunflower oil.
Gina Malone/For the Times-News
Gina Malone/For the Times-News
Published: Saturday, October 27, 2012 at 4:30 a.m.
Students at Polk County High will soon be turning their cafeteria's old grease into fuel for diesel engines.
The school has acquired a
biodiesel wagon with the necessary equipment for converting natural
oils to engine-powering fuel, and in the spring will offer classes on
the process. That will make the school one of only a few in the state to
offer students an educational opportunity usually not available until
college.
As fuel prices
climb and environmental awareness grows, the push is on to find
alternative sources to fossil fuels. One green way is the conversion of
plant oils, animal fat or used cooking oil to biofuels. The non-toxic,
biodegradable results of this process include a fuel, a meal byproduct
that can be fed to livestock, and glycerin that can be turned into soap
and other cleaning products.
It's
a self-sustaining production cycle involving a crop farm and an animal
farm as well as the biodiesel wagon, said said Kim Mirasola, PCHS
biology teacher and self-proclaimed "Director of Greasearch 101." Every
step of the process feeds back into the cycle or creates a natural
byproduct; nothing is wasted.
Tawana
Weicker agrees. Weicker was an English teacher at Polk County High five
years ago when a student, Elizabeth Russell, decided to do her senior
project on biofuels. At the time, Russell worked at Mountain View BBQ in
Columbus and had an uncle who knew about producing biodiesel.
In overseeing Russell's
project, Weicker became so inspired that she began studying the process
herself, eventually starting her own business, Be Kind Solutions, that
sells all-natural cleaning products made from the glycerin byproduct of
her own biodiesel operation at home. She runs her cars on the biodiesel
she produces.
In what
amounts to a "community exchange," she said, Mountain View now provides
her with all the used cooking oil she needs in exchange for cleaning
products. The restaurant also displays and sells her products to
supplement her online sales at www.bekindsolutions.com.
Her website describes her products as "kind cleaning solutions for
people, pet and planet" that can be used to clean nearly anything.
Former students, fellow teachers and family have all helped in growing
her business.
Weicker's
own enthusiasm led to a desire among her school colleagues to offer this
science at the high school level, and they began consulting with
Appalachian State University and also explored Clemson University's
program.
When the school
board approved the start-up of a program at Polk County High, they began
writing grants and receiving community support to help with collecting
necessary supplies, including the production wagon that was an
educational mobile unit used by Piedmont Biofuels in Pittsboro.
The
wagon's generator runs on biodiesel itself and includes everything
necessary for production, including a reactor where the solvent
(methanol) and a catalyst such as potassium hydroxide are added to the
oil, a tank where separation of fuel and glycerin occurs, a washing tank
that cleans the fuel of any remaining glycerin or methane, a drying
tank, and an ion exchanger for filtration.
The school's program will be
for education and research primarily, said Mirasola. She will be joined
in teaching the course by chemistry teacher Sergey Zalevskiy. The two
recently completed a two-day course of their own on the process led by
David Thornton, a research associate with Clemson University's
biosystems engineering department and the school's resident "biodiesel
guru."
At the end of
training they produced their first batch of biodiesel, a product pure
enough for human consumption, they said, and one that is, because of the
carbon-dioxide consuming plants used in the process, almost entirely
carbon-neutral once burned as fuel.
Students,
including Mason Umlauf, who is doing his senior project on biofuels,
will be doing college-level research, Mirasola said, providing their
results to universities. The goal, she said, is not large production of
biodiesel, but rather developing in students the know-how that may lead
them to start their own green businesses someday, as Weicker has.
"We want our kids to know how to be entrepreneurs," Mirasola said.
The
Polk County High teachers would like to see biodiesel programs become
part of the state's science curriculum. They may produce enough
biodiesel to run an activity bus or one of the tractors on the school's
7-acre working farm, the teachers said.
The
school's farm also feeds into the process since, besides using cooking
oil from the county's school cafeterias, students will use natural oils
such as those from sunflower seeds and soybeans. The school has arable
land as well as a greenhouse, and its goats and chickens will benefit
from the meal byproduct that is left behind when seeds are pressed. It
is, said Zalevskiy, "pure protein" and the goats love it.
There
will be two biodiesel classes with 12 students each in the spring. One
class requires algebra as a prerequisite. The other requires chemistry
and algebra and will be an honors-level class. These students, Mirasola
said, will be the "problem solvers and leaders" of the program. Hopes
are, eventually, to offer three classes every semester.
Like the all-encompassing
process itself, this program will involve every department at the
school, everyone from art students designing labels to special education
students getting in on production and English students writing about
the process.
"We want the whole school involved," Mirasola said. "This is just developing. We want it to grow."
