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BGR patent improves biodiesel production, April 20, 2011 Enormous success for BGR's technical mineralogy researchers: the German patent office has awarded them patent number DE 10 2007 059 620 A1/WO2009074307 A2 for their discovery of a method for purifying biodiesel using allophane and/or imogolite, achieved in cooperation with the specialists in the research department of the Munich-based Süd-Chemie AG. Thanks to the discovery of the inventors from Hanover and Munich, biodiesel can be produced even more economically in future. The scientists developed a process for purging biodiesel raw materials, such as vegetable oils, for example, even more effectively of alien substances. The alum earth allophane aids in this process. With the help of this mineral glycerides, which are detrimental to biodiesel's use as a fuel, can be better adsorbed, making the production of biodiesel considerably easier. It was BGR researchers who discovered allophane in Ecuador in the 1980s while searching for suitable local building materials for a development cooperation project they were involved in. In the BGR laboratories the scientists discovered that the alum earth consisted of the clay mineral allophane. However, it has never been described previously anywhere in the world at the thickness and concentration encountered here. The alum earth allophane originated around 20,000 to 5,000 years ago as the weathering product of volcanic ash and is thus geologically a very young mineral. It has a very large surface area with highly reactive properties, making it interesting for numerous technical applications in the chemicals industry. |