History of Biodiesel

Biodiesel has been around as long as the diesel engine has. The very first diesel engine demonstrated by Rudolf Diesel ran on peanut oil. It was not a true biodiesel, simply a biofuel, since it had not gone through the transesterification process.

Transesterification of vegetable oil was first conducted by two scientists E. Duffy and J. Patrick as early as 1853 many years before the diesel engine was invented. Rudolf Diesel believed that the utilization of biomass fuel was the real future of his engine.

In a 1912 speech Diesel said. “The use of vegetable oils for engine fuels may seem insignificant today but such oils may become, in course of time, as important as petroleum and the coal-tar products of the present time.” (Van Gerpen, 2004)

During the 1920’s many diesel engine manufactures decided to develop their engines to use fossil bases petroleum products because of its lower viscosity and the pressure from the oil tycoons. This combined with the fact it was cheaper to produce petroleum based diesel compared to its biodiesel counterpart meant that there was a near elimination of the biomass fuel production infrastructure.

It is only in recent years, that a concern over the environmental impact of fossil fuels, rising oil prices, and the decreasing cost differentials in manufacturing that biodiesel has become an attractive alternative.

The pioneers of the modern biodiesel age were initiated in South Africa in 1979. They began research into the use of transesterified sunflower oil and refining it to diesel fuel standards.

In 1983 the research was published and released internationally detailing the process for producing diesel quality, engine tested biodiesel. In November 1987 an Austrian company called Gaskoks, obtained the technology from the South
African Agricultural Engineers and built the first biodiesel pilot plant. In April 1989 the company built the first industrial scale plant with a capacity of 30,000 tons of rapeseed per annum.

Development of the biodiesel industry continued right through the 1990’s with many European countries, including the Czech Republic, Germany and Sweden opening biodiesel manufacturing plants. France introduced local production of biodiesel fuel from rapeseed oil. The biodiesel was then blended with regular diesel at a level of 5%.

By 1998 the Biofuels Institute in Austria had identified 21 countries with commercial biodiesel projects. Much of France’s public transport currently uses diesel blended with 30% biodiesel. Manytruck manufacturers had certified their engines to be used with the 30% biodiesel blend.