Waste Oil Pump

Pasadena-based KiOR plans to have renewable crude oil at the pumps next year

Imagine a cheaper gasoline that can be produced domestically and is environmentally friendly.

A pipe dream?

Maybe not if a Pasadena-based company’s business plan pans out.

KiOR, (pronounced KEY-ORE) has spent the last three years perfecting a technology that enables the company to convert low cost biomass like wood chips or algae into hydrocarbon-based renewable crude oil that is then refined into gasoline or diesel.

“Kior was built on the vision that we can reduce our dependence on petroleum by harnessing alternative sources of fuel without having to rebuild the nation’s fuel infrastructure,” Fred Cannon, KiOR’s President and CEO says in a statement on the firm’s website. “At Kior we are commercializing a technology that can create an environmentally friendly crude oil substitute from a wide variety of biomass, everything from agriculture waste and residue such as sugar cane bagasse to wood chips.”

According to the company the process has been tested successfully at KiOR’s labs and Pilot Plant, located on Bay Park Road in Pasadena. The plant is a hive of activity underneath a pair of huge concrete silos that can be seen from nearby La Porte, but considerably smaller than a refinery.

“Pasadena has been KiOR’s headquarters since shortly after its founding in 2007. At the demonstration scale facility, which has been running in Pasadena since the first quarter of 2010, the company is producing 15 barrels of its renewable crude per day. KiOR also has a pilot plant at its headquarters, which has operated successfully for over 9,000 hours,” a company spokesman said in an email to The Citizen. “At its first commercial scale facility in Columbus, Miss., KiOR plans to produce 11 million gallons of renewable fuel per year. The company is also planning to begin construction on another commercial scale facility – three times larger than the Columbus plant – in the second half of 2012.”

The process is very detailed but essentially can be broken down into four steps: Biomass processing. biomass fluid catalyic cracking and product recovery.

The biomass od dried and conditioning using equipment similar to what is typically used for pulp and paper processing. The biomass options are numerous and readily available without the need for exploration or drilling.

“While KiOR plans for Southern Yellow Pine woodchips to be the primary feedstock at its first commercial scale facilities, its feedstock flexible technology allows for the conversion of a wide variety of non-food biomass into renewable fuels,” the spokesman said. “ Potential feedstock options include agricultural resides such as corn stover and sugarcane bagasse, energy crops like switchgrass, and algae. The advantage of this feedstock flexibility is primarily geographic, allowing the company to pursue expansion opportunities virtually anywhere in the world where biomass feedstock is abundantly available.

Dieselcraft Fluid Engineering device cleans waste oil

Dieselcraft Fluid Engineering’s Fuel Factory, a modular drum top centrifuge processing system driven by a gear pump, is designed to clean 216 gallons of waste oil per hour. The system is built to clean waste motor oil, diesel fuel, transmission fluid, hydraulic fluid and vegetable oil without any filters; it also will separate any solid from the liquid and remove water. The device is built on a ¼-inch powder-coated aluminum plate that holds the two centrifuges, pump, motor, switch and 12-inch pour opening.

The Fuel Factory is designed to fit inside and just below the top edge of a standard 55-gallon open top drum; by being below the top ½-inch, there are fewer spills on the ground. Pour the waste oil product through the pour opening, turn on the heater and turn on the pump; the processed oil then is pumped to the storage drum by use of the same pump that drives the centrifuges. The device is designed for easy removal from the drum.

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