City may brew fry grease into biofuel
HCM City — The city is preparing to manufacture biodiesel from recycled vegetable oil and the animal fat that will be collected from restaurants and hotels in the city.
“This is an important project to recycle energy as well as to protect the environment,” Phan Minh Tan, vice director of HCM City’s Science and Technology Department, said.
Diesel oil accounts for half of the petroleum products used in Viet Nam, he said.
Fuel consumption causes 70 per cent of environmental pollution, Tan added.
“The city’s Natural Resources and Environment Department cannot control the disposal of vegetable oils and fats,” Nguyen Trung Viet, head of NRED’s Solid Waste Management Board, said.
He added that used oils and fats are being sold to street vendors.
“These reused oils and fats are a serious danger to the community’s health,” Viet added.
Many hotels and restaurants in the city put used oil and fat into tanks and gave it to rubbish collectors every month.
Some pour it directly into the sewage system and few pay for environmental companies to treat it.
“Kim Do Hotel is one of 15 hotels in the city to get an ISO 14001 certificate for environmental protection,” Tran Van Sang, manager of the hotel, said.
“But we send used oils and fats to waste treatment companies,” he said.
City managers would like to set up a system to collect all used oil and fat with an estimated several thousand tonnes per year.
“We are now working with other factories that produce instant noodles, snacks and potato chips that use a huge amount of oil and fat,” Tan added.
The project is being conducted by scientists from HCM City’s Polytechnique University.
“We have tested and ensured that biodiesel from our laboratory can be mixed with normal diesel at a 20-80 ratio, the highest portion of biodiesel in the world so far.
This will make machines and engines work normally,” said Truong Quoc Vuong, who is heading a team of scientists at the university.
Biodiesel fuel is environmentally safer than diesel fuel but is more costly.
“At 1.5-2 times higher than the price of normal diesel, biodiesel production needs to get support from the government,” Tan said.
The price for petrol products is increasing and it is expected that costs for manufacturing biodiesel will fall in the future.
Many countries in the world have produced biodiesel from oil of coconut, palm and sunflower.
In Viet Nam, fat from catfish like basa and tra, oil of soybean and peanut are used for biodiesel fuel. — VNS