Americo Biodiesel plant!

Finally we visited the Americo plant! We met the founder and "CEO" and had some good conversation with him about the ecology and corporate side of his business venture. I asked the question "do you have to pay for the waste oil" and he lit up like a candle talking about how he does pay for the oil but the benefit to the restaurant is much more when he mentions to them that they can call themselves eco-friendly because they are contributing to the Biofuel market and not polluting with their waste oil. The plant is a little rough around the edges however it is pretty much a working large scale experiment in Biodiesel production! He is constantly trying new methods and techniques in order to perfect the process. He was hugely accommodating with our visit but understandably refused to allow photos of his Biodiesel reactors or process. He showed us the tanks that the waste oil first passes through. This was surprising as there was all type of crap that is in the sieve after the first filtering, wood steaks, plastics, cloth etc! Remember this stuff comes from restaurants! He took us through his "Lab" where he and his chemist test the purity and other aspects of the finished BDO for proper ASTM specs before they sell it. His plant is also run on the biodiesel that it produces so it is truly "off the grid" so to speak. This was very exciting and I hope myself and my students can stay in contact with him about our experiences with the refinement process.