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Prof. (Emeritus) Aharon Gedanken from the Department of Chemistry at Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel, recently visited National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) in southern Taiwan, to continue his research in converting waste cooking oils into biodiesel with the University’s research team.
As a visiting chair professor at NCKU’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE), Gedanken is a pioneer of sonochemistry and an expert in the fabrication of nanostructures. He briefed his project to Hwung-Hweng Hwung, NCKU’s president, on September 5th, saying: “We are converting waste cooking oil into biofuel and now we can convert 3 liters per hour.”
The research team in NCKU has developed a process to convert used cooking oil to biodiesel through catalyst include microwaves and strontium oxide (SrO). A converting machine designed to run the process has also been built by a Taiwanese company on a basis of a special-programmed system.
The converting machine has been set up in the department and ready to yield more biofuel in the coming months, according to MSE Distinguished Professor Jiunn-Der Liao, who invited Gedanken to NCKU faculty to conduct the research. With Gedanken’s help, NCKU will set up a converting station at a branch campus to collect more waste cooked oil for demonstrating.
"Prof. Gedanken has been named as one of ISI's Highly Cited Researchers and his study has been cited in more than 14,000 scientific articles. We're honored to invite him over to conduct the research project as visiting chair professor," said Liao. “Our goal is to introduce the station to both local and abroad companies which are into the bio-energy business. So far, we have received inquiries from Thailand, Malaysia, and at least three domestic enterprises.”
The three-year project supported and conducted by NCKU was started in August 2013. At the second year of the research project, NCKU is about to realize it and conduct the experiment with a larger scale to set up a station.
(Photo Credit: NCKU)