NORMAL - A team of students and faculty sees great potential in the 5,000 gallons of used fryer oil generated each year by food service operations at Illinois State University. For the two research assistants and their professors, the question is this: Can fryer oil and other waste oil be converted to biodiesel to be used in campus vehicles?

With 10 gallons of vegetable oil collected from five ISU sites, environmental health professor Thomas Bierma and program director Guang Jin started the project this summer with assistants Ray Mucha and Carline Wade.

A laboratory in the Department of Health Sciences at Felmley Hall is a small-scale production site for three experiments the team is conducting. The team uses waste oil from fryers, called yellow oil, to make biodiesel by a traditional method that includes a reaction process with lye and methanol acting as catalysts.

A small water heater is a key component in the table top reactor.

"Turning fryer oil into biodiesel is not new - there are people around the country doing this in their garages," said Bierma.

The ISU staff and students hope to expand the process to convert the 5,000 gallons of oil to an equal amount of biodiesel for campus vehicles. The university uses an estimated 10,000 gallons of the fuel every year.

The fryer oil is a readily available resource, he said. "We know there are hundreds of millions of gallons of yellow and brown oil" in the United States, said Bierma.

The so-called brown oil presented the team with a major challenge. The heavy oil is grease that it is too degraded to use in biodiesel production. Brown oil is the material collected in grease traps by restaurants.

The ISU team learned when brown grease is processed with lye through the traditional method, the result is soap.

The alternative approach uses lipase, an enzyme produced from micro-organisms, in place of lye.

The new approach "doesn't require a washing process to remove the catalysts but the major barrier in using lipase is that it's very, very expensive," said Bierma.

Jin is excited about the progress made in the lab with the lipase but acknowledged more work is ahead. "We're really just beginning the process with lipase," said Jin.

The team also is looking into the use of ethanol as a substitute for methanol in the traditional biodiesel process. The corn-based product is less toxic, explained Bierma.

For the research assistants, the project represents a step toward alternative energy sources.

"I've enjoyed the creative process. Small projects like this are the future. We can't just look at the process and ignore the waste," said Wade.

"For so long, we've been dependent on foreign oil and destroying the earth. I see hope in plain old biodiesel. If we can pull this off, there will be better alternatives" said Mucha.

The next step in the program is to conduct a chemical analysis of the biodiesel and, if that test is successful, place the fuel in a test engine. A blend that includes 20 percent fryer oil biodiesel and standard biodiesel will be tested in a campus truck after the chemical screening.

A cost analysis of the new biodiesel processes also will be conducted.

The $12,000 budget for the biodiesel project comes from the university and a grant from the Illinois Waste Management and Research Council.

The possibility that half of the biodiesel needs of the campus could be met with waste fryer and degraded oils is a worthwhile goal, said Bierma. The project also holds promise as a teaching tool with wide-reaching implications, he said.

"This is a wonderful example of so many basic scientific principles - biochemistry, physics, agriculture. It's an extremely educational activity," said Bierma.