What can you do with cooking oils or sugary soda pop? Recycle or create chemical electricity as fuel to recharge your cell phone, laptop, or run your car by recycling used cooking oil as diesel fuel. Basically, what works as fuel to recharge your energy in your body's cells also works to recharge your computers and cell phones. But don't dump sugar or vegetable oil into your cell phone or laptop just yet. There's a process.
The process is about using the idea of how chemical electricity is created by turning your body's sugar and fat into fuel. A similar method can be applied. In the near future you may be able to fuel your mobile computer devices such as laptops and cell phones or other electronic devices you carry using vegetable oils or sugary soda pop. Imagine what these new uses of soda pop and vegetables oils will do to raise the profit of companies that manufacture, market, recycle, distribute or sell sugar or vegetable oils.
How would you like to recharge laptops, cell phones, and other electronic mobile devices by sharing a bit of your sugary soda pop or one of the vegetable oils? Scientists today reported development of a new battery-like device that opens the possibility that people one day could "recharge" cell phones, laptops, and other portable electronics in an unlikely way ? with a sugar fix from a shared sip of soda pop or even a dose of vegetable oil, according to an August 25, 2010 EurekAlert! news release, "Juicing up laptops and cell phones with soda pop or vegetable oil?" The National Science Foundation funded the study, announced on August 25, 2010 at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS).
Researchers described the device at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS). It's the first fuel cell that produces electricity with technology borrowed from the biological powerhouses that energize people and other living things on Earth. It's a far healthier trend to feed soda pop to your laptop to recharge it than to spill liquid on your keyboard. Think of how much more soda pop will be sold not only as beverages but to recharge laptop computers and mobile devices. It's a market to think about for the near future.
"This is the first demonstration of a new class of biofuel cells," Shelley Minteer, Ph.D. explained in the news release. Dr. Minteer presented the report. "When further developed, these devices have the potential for replacing disposable and rechargeable batteries in a wide variety of consumer electronics and other products. It is the first such device based on one of the microscopic parts of the billions upon billions of cells that make up the body."
Just as the human body has internal organs like the liver and the heart, cells that make up the body have internal structures termed organelles ("little organs"). For the new biofuel cell, Minteer and colleagues chose one of the most amazing organelles: the mitochondria.
Sometimes called the cell's own powerhouses, mitochondria transform the calories in food into chemical energy that the body needs to sustain life. Mitochondria use a chemical formed from the digestion of sugar and fats, called pyruvate, to make another substance called ATP (adenosine triphosphate), which stores energy until needed.
Each day the mitochondria in a typical person produce and recycle an amount of ATP equal to the person's body weight. This energy-producing system powered by sugar or fats opens the possibility of refueling a laptop or cell phone with vegetable fats or common oils, noted Minteer at the national meeting. Minteer is a chemist with Saint Louis University in Missouri.
Minteer pointed out that biofuel cells are not new. Scientists have borrowed from Mother Nature to produce a variety of other biofuel cells that use enzymes, for instance, and bacteria to produce electricity. Fuel cells make electricity from the chemical energy in a fuel and oxygen in the air or liquid oxygen.
Fuel cells work much like batteries. Unlike batteries, however, fuel cells do not run down or need a recharge. They produce electricity continuously, so long as fuel and oxygen are available. The fuel can be hydrogen, natural gas, alcohol, or other materials.
Minteer and colleagues described the development and successful lab testing of the first mitochondria fuel cell. The device consists of a thin layer of mitochondria sandwiched between two electrodes, including a gas-permeable electrode. Tests showed that it produced electricity using sugar or cooking oil byproducts as fuel.
Other potential applications of mitochondria fuel cells include their use as power sources in wireless sensors for temperature monitoring, motion detection, and monitoring the location of vehicles in a fleet. The new biofuel cells also could serve as a power-source for stamp-sized sensors designed to detect hidden explosives, the scientists said.
The American Chemical Society is a non-profit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 161,000 members, ACS is the world's largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.
Fuel cells make electricity. It's similar to the chemical electricity your cells make by using the fuels of sugar and oils/fats.
Did you ever think biofuel cells could also be the soda pop or vegetable oil you have in your kitchen? Energy-producing fuels for your laptop, cell phone, or other mobile electronic devices can come from sugars and oils or fats. After all, your mitrochondria cells (mtDNA) are a powerhouse fueled by sugar and oils (or fats). See the link--fuels for the body's cells also can be turned into fuels for electronic mobile device cells? So sugar and fat has new uses outside your body--to recharge your computer and cell phone.
Sacramento Biofuels Network: Recycling Used Cooking Oils
Where do you recycle used cooking oils in Sacramento? You can now recycle your used fryer oil for local renewable biofuels production through a local community recycling network called Cooking Oil Recycling Campaign or CORC. For quantities of 20 gallons or more, call to schedule a pick up. The phone number is at the website. Check the website first for updates, since sometimes phone numbers change. See the article, Sacramento Biofuels Network: Recycle Your Used Fryer Oil for Biofuels.
Let the oil cool back down to room temperature after frying, then drain it back into the container you purchased the oil in or a similar clean, leak proof container and drop it off at one of the following locations:
The North area is by appointment. Call first. The phone number is on the Biofuels website.
Also check out the site for the Information Exchange in Fair Oaks, in the Sacramento area, a producer of leading recreation and safety training videos. See the book, From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank, The Complete Guide to Using Vegetable Oil As an Alternative Fuel.
For example, what do you do with vegetable cooking oil after you fry your holiday deep fried foods? You can recycle your used vegetable fryer oil for local renewable biofuels production through Sacramento's community recycling network called Cooking Oil Recycling Campaign or CORC. See the website, Sacramento Biofuels Network: Recycle Your Used Fryer Oil for Biofuels.
There's a book on the subject of how to use vegetable oil for diesel fuel. Any diesel engine can run on vegetable oil, and this great book tells you how. In From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank, expert Joshua Tickell unveils the problems with fossil fuel dependency and offers a simple solution--use cheap, clean-burning vegetable oil.
The book provides easy-to-understand instructions for running a diesel engine on vegetable oil. The methods are described in detail, including how to make biodiesel from used cooking oil and how to run a diesel engine on straight vegetable oil.
The book also includes instructions for building a biodiesel processor and growing and processing oilseed crops. There are more than 130 photos, graphs, and diagrams in this definitive guide to using vegetable oil as an alternative fuel.
Where to Recycle Cooking Oil in Sacramento
Fair Oaks Area:
Fair Oaks Recycling Center (next to Mak's smog shop)
11100 Fair Oaks Blvd and Sunset Ave, Fair Oaks, CA 95628,
Monday to Saturdays from 9am to 5pm and Sundays from 10am to 2pm
Call for North Area or Mid-Town, Sacramento:
To become a seasonal or on-going drop off location email steve@theinfoexchange.org
In Sacramento, there's an industry that recycles used cooking oils. Where do you take your cooking oil for recycling? See the website, Sacramento Biofuels Network. Sacramento Biofuels Network, SBN, was formed to assist people in implementing energy options beyond dependency on nonrenewable petroleum starting with establishing local access to commercial quality biodiesel in the
SBN services include biodiesel consumer education, organizing Buyers Groups and coordinating bulk biodiesel delivery for a variety of network members. The network is currently made up of biodiesel bulk purchasers, called Supply Sites, who purchase pure commercial quality biodiesel (B100) in bulk through SBN utilizing suitable above ground bulk containers, usually 250 to 2000 gallon, to store and dispense the fuel.
The two basic types of SBN Supply Sites are:
Independent Supply Sites, who purchase biodiesel in bulk for their own in-house or personal needs including agricultural, commercial and institutional organizations and fleets.
Buyers Group Supply Sites, where a Site Host provides space for storing and dispensing a bulk quantity of biodiesel to share with friends or other individual buyers who become members of that Supply Site. All Buyers Group members must read and sign a site specific version of a Biodiesel Buyers Agreement (sample provided by SBN) to be a member and purchase the biodiesel from that site cooperatively.
The Buyers Group Supply Sites are organized like the Community Supported Agriculture model which we call Community Supported Energy, CSE. This CSE distribution model is an effective way to bring individual consumers together to exchange information, develop mutual interests and to utilize their collective purchasing power for choices in fuel access, bulk pricing and related cooperative consumer benefits.
SBN assists members in gaining access to biodiesel, setting up Supply Sites, meeting legal requirements and understanding basic biodiesel use and handling guidelines. Once set up, a Supply Site can make a bulk biodiesel purchase through the SBN coordinator who aggregates the order quantities and organizes them for efficient delivery, to make minimum delivery requirements and to achieve collective bulk quantity price breaks.
The biodiesel is delivered to each Supply Site by refilling their containers from the selected distributor’s commercial tanker truck. The manufacturers and distributors who supply SBN Supply Sites are selected by a list of buying priorities starting with their ability to verify fuel quality according to national standards as the number one priority.
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