Summary:
KOCHI: SCMS Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology Research and Development’s eco-friendly coconut biofuel technology has been identified under the sector of waste-to-wealth technologies by Swachh Bharat Mission’s project advisory and review committee of department of science and industrial research, ministry of science and technology.The committee has identified 37 such technologies from research institutes in India. Therefore, they adapted an integrated approach of producing CME from de-husked mature coconuts, for which they needed four sub-products at each level of processing — shell, mature coconut water, oil cake and glycerol.“This reduces the total cost of the coconut biofuel to Rs 50, making it much cheaper than petrol and diesel. As per the protocol of the esterification of coconut oil, the processing of 10,000 de-husked nuts provides 850 litres of coconut oil, and it can be converted into 760 litres of CME and 80-90 litres of crude glycerol.“To ensure quality of the coconut oil, the entire production of CME was started from the matured de-husked nuts purchased commercially,” Dr Mohankumar added. The second one from the state is cost-effective bricks from Travancore Titanium products, Thiruvananthapuram Moving from the nutritional and therapeutic benefits of coconut oil, the researchers at SCMS decided to use coconut oil as a biofuel by transesterification of the oil to coconut methyl ester (CME).To ensure the biofuel efficacy of CME directly in diesel vehicle, a test run was conducted and it was found that low carbon residue, minimal acidity and negligible sulphur element make coconut biofuel as eco-friendly. Of these, two are from Kerala..