The rising costs of oil and increasing concern for the environment have raised awareness of the sustainability of our country’s current energy sources. Piedmont Biofuels, located in Pittsboro, NC, is helping to make biofuel production more economically viable. With grants from the North Carolina Green Business Fund and the One NC Small Business Program, Piedmont Biofuels is creating a new biodiesel production process that is cleaner, less wasteful, and more profitable. Piedmont Biofuels received two Green Business Fund grants, one in 2008 and one in 2009, to establish a pilot continuous-flow biodiesel production plant and to make the plant more energy efficient. In 2010, the organization received a One NC Small Business Program grant to match a federal award to commercialize their biofuel production process. Both grant programs are administered by the North Carolina Department of Commerce’s Office of Science and Technology.
Biodiesel is an alternative diesel fuel source that is more environmentally-friendly than regular petroleum-based diesel. Biodiesel is typically produced from feedstocks, such as used cooking oil and fats, and may provide a locally available source to help meet future energy needs. “We’re hoping to revolutionize the biodiesel industry and how they make biodiesel,” said Piedmont Biofuels’ Research Director Rachel Burton.
Piedmont Biofuels uses a unique biofuel production process known as enzyme catalysis. This process allows for more efficient processing of cheaper but less pure feedstocks such as cooking oil, instead of more expensive feedstock such as corn, thus lowering biodiesel production costs. “People have been looking at using enzymes in biodiesel for many years, but it’s always been that the enzymes were too expensive or that the process didn’t fully convert or make biodiesel,” said Burton. “We took the commercial standards that biodiesel producers have to meet, and we applied that to the enzymatic process. And we were the first people that have ever been able to demonstrate that you can meet the [federally-mandated] fuel specifications using enzyme-based production.”
Founded in 2003, Piedmont Biofuels settled in the state’s first private green business park in Pittsboro in 2005. With Piedmont Biofuels as an anchor, other green businesses have been able to grow and develop in the park which is now home to almost a dozen businesses involved with agricultural technology, alternative energy development, and organic produce farming. These businesses have been helping to improve both the environment and the economy by keeping the production of goods local and green. Piedmont Biofuels has involved the surrounding community by collecting waste products from nearby restaurants to convert to usable biodiesel. “Our long term goal is to usher in this new way of making biodiesel thereby demonstrating that sustainable biodiesel production is here to stay,” said Burton.
- Story and pictures by Hansford Hendago
Hansford Hendargo is a Ph.D. candidate in the Biomedical Engineering Department at Duke University. His research focus is on developing medical imaging technology.