MANKATO, Minn. — Plasma Blue, the biodiesel process developed by the Minnesota Soybean Research and Promotion Council and research scientists at the University of Minnesota, will begin turning a profit within a year or less, according to Tom Slunecka, who serves as the Chief Executive Officer of the Research and Promotion Council as well as the CEO of Plasma Blue.
Plasma Blue reactors are currently operating at biodiesel plants in Iowa and Michigan and have previously been at the Integrity Biofuels plant of Morristown, Ind. The Indiana plant closed in October 2019 due to inaction on biodiesel by the Trump administration, according to a report from Biodiesel Magazines in November 2019.
The results from that Plasma Blue reactor in Indiana, along with the ongoing results from the Michigan and Iowa reactors, have actually been better than research suggested they would be, Slunecka said.
“Compared to the conventional biodiesel process, the Plasma Blue reactor has reduced energy consumption by four cents per gallon,” he said. “Plasma uses only a fraction of the energy needed to drive the transesterification process, The process can be scaled to any size; but a one million gallon annual production rate plasma reactor only requires the same amount of power needed to run two 60-watt light bulbs.”
The pumps required to move the biodiesel do require some additional energy, Slunecka points out, but the whole thing can be powered by a small solar array.
In addition to reduced energy, the plasma reactors use a less expensive catalyst than conventional reactors. That has created an additional five cents per gallon savings with reactors operating in the field.
The chemical reaction which turns soy oil into biodiesel, known as transesterification, is faster and more efficient with the plasma reactor than with the conventional reactor, according to Slunecka, so there’s another savings of three cents, for a total of 12 cents per gallon in savings for plant operators.
That savings in efficiency is realized because the creation of out-of-spec product is dramatically reduced or almost eliminated with this technology, according to Plasma Blue literature.
“Traditional reactors use heat; but plasma uses electricity,” Slunecka said. “Electricity is more powerful and more controlled and the reaction occurs extremely quickly. Plasma drives the trans process to be started and completed within a millisecond.”
The plasma reactors being used in Iowa and Michigan are 1.5 million gallon per year reactors which measure about five by seven feet and are small enough to be hauled by a trailer.
Plasma Blue started out as a research and development project at the University of Minnesota and was funded with farmers’ soybean check-off money. To turn the process into a product that could be commercialized, the Research and Promotion Council has converted it into a for-profit corporation.
“We have several research projects that look promising for commercialization, so we set up a for-profit corporation to seek private investors to do that,” Slunecka said. “Soybean check off dollars are great for doing research; but if we’re only going to write a research white paper, we would not be serving farmers as well as we could.”
The Plasma Blue bio diesel reaction system is now looking for investor partners to help expand the business.
Slunecka says research on the Plasma Blue’s biodiesel transesterification process is largely complete. The plasma reactor has other applications as well, however, and research into those processes is ongoing.
“Transesterification is the combining of chemicals that are naturally attracted to one another — so when they are mixed, they come together and make new chemicals,” Slunecka said. “Plasma is a completely new way of how to combine the chemicals. While the finished product can be standard biodiesel, because the way the chemicals are combined, the Plasma Blue reaction is far more complete. This results in a better quality product and the ability to make other types of chemicals with the same system.”
With that in mind, research at the University of Minnesota is continuing on what other chemicals could be produced at biodoesel plants. Having the capacity to switch between two or three chemical products, depending on market conditions, would give biodiesel plants flexibility and resilience.
The Plasma Blue reactor also can purify waste water.
”The plasma reaction kills fungus, bacteria, and other pathogens; so a Plasma Blue reactor could be used to clean water from tile discharge lines or, for example, for cleaning food processing waste water,” Slunecka said.
The principle scientist researching additional uses for the plasma reaction at this time is Shaobo Deng at the University’s Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering in Waseca.
“Our long term goal is to help small farmer investors of biodiesel plants become drivers of their local economies and to help Midwestern farmers be profitable,” he said.
Slunecka also envisions the Plasma Blue reactor being useful in parts of the world where clean drinking isn’t available.
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