NREL team investigates performance of higher blends of biodiesel
Barriers that are currently preventing the use of greater percentages of biomass-based diesel fuel blended into petroleum diesel have been identified, along with strategies to overcome them, according to researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
The biobased diesel fuel in use today is blended into petroleum diesel at a relatively low percentage, typically from 5 percent to 20 percent.
An NREL team investigated the performance of much higher blends of biodiesel into both renewable diesel and petroleum diesel.
The team specifically examined B20, B40, B60 and B80 blends.
A switch to using higher percentages of biobased diesel fuels would reduce the amount of greenhouse gases (GHGs) emitted by the transportation sector.
Biodiesel is an oxygenate made from fats, oils and greases.
Renewable diesel is made from the same feedstocks but processed to be a hydrocarbon chemically similar to petroleum diesel.
“It’s amazing to me, but there are thousands of papers published every year on biodiesel, and almost nobody looks at blends over 20 percent,” said Robert McCormick, an NREL senior research fellow and corresponding author of the newly published research paper “Properties That Potentially Limit High-Level Blends of Biomass-Based Diesel Fuel,” which appears in the journal Energy & Fuels. “This research addresses a major data gap about biodiesel blends, both because it looks at high-level blends and because it looks at blends with renewable diesel as well as petroleum diesel. Biodiesel blends with renewable diesel are 100 percent renewable.”
The paper was coauthored by researchers Gina Fioroni, Nimal Naser and Jon Luecke, all also from NREL.
The researchers examined biodiesel produced from soybean oil, which is the most common feedstock used in the United States to make the fuel.
They pointed out that a detailed understanding about the properties of biodiesel blended at levels above 20 percent is lacking.
Heavy-duty long-haul trucks and off-road equipment, marine shipping and commercial aircraft are expected to continue requiring liquid fuels even as electrification of smaller vehicles ramps up.
These fuels will need to be low net-GHG emissions—such as biodiesel and renewable diesel—and compatible with existing engines.
The use of biodiesel and renewable diesel is forecast to reduce transportation-related GHG emissions from 40 percent to 86 percent compared to petroleum diesel, depending upon the feedstock used.
McCormick said with a biodiesel blend greater than about 50 percent, “you start to have property differences with petroleum that that could be problematic.”
At less than 50 percent, the differences do not pose much of a challenge.
Challenges with biodiesel blends greater than 50 percent can, however, be mitigated.
For example, diesel fuels must be reformulated in winter months to ensure that the cloud point—the temperature at which wax begins to form—is below the expected ambient temperature.
Wax can cause fuel-filter clogging such that the engine cannot operate.
Biodiesel cloud point can be as low as 20 degrees Fahrenheit but for soy biodiesel is around 32 F, making the use of 100 percent biodiesel problematic in areas with colder winters.
“This issue can be managed by reducing the blend level or by blending the biodiesel into different hydrocarbon blendstocks with a lower cloud point during the winter months—as is commonly done today for B20,” McCormick said. “A similar strategy could be used to mitigate the high boiling point of biodiesel, which is near the top of the diesel boiling range.”
A hydrocarbon blendstock with a lower boiling point, such as kerosene, could be used for biodiesel blends over 50 percent, alleviating challenges in cold starting the engine, accumulation of fuel in the engine lubricant, and potentially failure of emission-control catalysts to light-off, or achieve high enough temperature.
The research, which was funded by the U.S. DOE’s Vehicle Technologies Office, also examined other fuel properties such as density, oxidation stability and water content to determine whether these might limit the blending of biodiesel.
Oxidation stability, for example, may be reduced as more biodiesel is blended, but the problem can be overcome by using higher levels of antioxidant additives.
Significant future research is needed to address the challenges of high-level biodiesel blends, particularly on how they impact diesel-engine emission-control systems.
The NREL paper serves as a research road map for addressing these challenges.