Australian Innovation

The BioCube: “The social and economic impact of this could be phenomenal, not to mention the massive reduction in the carbon footprint”

One of the first grant recipients under the Climate Ready program, the Biofuel Partnership’s BioCube project delivers valuable biodiesel resources on-site in developing countries – at no cost to the environment.

The BioCube – developed by Gold Coast-based company The Biofuel Partnership – is a fully integrated, compact biodiesel processor half the size of a shipping container. It can be thought of as a community’s own green fuel station, capable of providing 300 to 400 people with a sustainable source of affordable clean energy.

The company’s technical director, and BioCube inventor, Sandy Kelly, says the BioCube is aimed at developing communities in the Tropics. However, it is also ideal for remote areas struck by natural disaster, as it is small enough to be lifted by helicopter.

“The BioCube costs approximately 1% of a mid-sized refinery, takes a fraction of the space, and is highly energy-efficient,” Kelly says. “It uses its own biodiesel to operate and processes feedstock at rates equivalent to much larger refineries.”

Socio-economic impact

Kelly came up with the idea for the BioCube while living in southeast Asia. He recognised small communities – and the environment – throughout the developing world would be far better off if farmers could refine their own biofuel crops in situ, instead of exporting them, and then importing the processed fuel.

“I saw that the social and economic impact of this could be phenomenal, not to mention the massive reduction in the carbon footprint,” says Kelly, a marine engineer and entrepreneur who has lived in the Philippines for the past 20 years.

“For instance, East Timor has a reservoir of crude fossil oil sitting in the seabed,” he continues. “The oil is tapped and shipped to Singapore for refining and then returned to East Timor. There is a net outflow of precious cash resources.”

Trials and challenges

After two years of trials and challenges, the first BioCubes were manufactured in 2009 in Victoria by the Australian arm of German engineering group, EDAG, ready for export to countries in Oceania, Asia, India, Africa and the Americas.

The Biofuel Partnership has raised more than $1 million through the Australian Small Scale Offerings Board Limited, and has a six member management team with expertise in engineering, business and marketing, and brand management.

The company was one of the first recipients of funding under the Australian Government’s Climate Ready program. The company was awarded a $500,000 dollar-fordollar grant in early 2009.

The company also claimed the ‘R&D Tax Concession’ while developing the BioCube, which incorporates four ‘innovations’ (see below).

Invaluable assistance

Inventor Sandy Kelly, the Biofuel Partnership’s technical director, with the BioCube

Laurence Baum, the company’s commercial director, says receiving the Climate Ready assistance has been “invaluable”.

“Capital raising is always a big issue for a start-up company, and you either need investors with deep pockets, or venture capital assistance,” he explains. “One of the problems with venture capitalists is they tend to stymie innovation because their agenda is to turn a short-term profit, rather than the excitement of the invention itself. “Being able to leverage assistance from AusIndustry provided valuable funding, and gave private investors confidence in us because they know that the Climate Ready application is a rigorous process, and the Australian Government must have confidence in us and our internal processes.

“As well, the R&D Tax Concession, through the R&D Tax Off set, gave us a $190,000 tax credit for the $1.5 million we spent developing the BioCube. This is a considerable amount for a small, start-up business.”

Sustainable feedstocks

The BioCube can run on a variety of feedstocks, but The BioFuel Partnership had ethical concerns about using traditional food sources such as palm oil and soya bean. “We researched different plants, and narrowed our list to three sources, of which jatropha and coconut constitute 80% of our interest,” Kelly says. “Jatropha can prosper on marginal soil that wouldn’t sustain most food crops and it also permits inter-cropping so that farmers can benefit from a continuous yield. Waste coconut is almost a nuisance crop in some places, and provides an inexpensive feedstock source.”

The Biofuel Partnership conducted field trials of jatropha in The Philippines and in Papua New Guinea, and applied to AusIndustry for a provisional certificate for proposed overseas research and development (R&D) activities. This meant they were able to claim a 125% tax concession under the R&D Tax Concession.

The innovations

The BioCube runs continuously and produces 2,000 litres of diesel in 10 hours. All parts have been designed to be easy to use and service.

The intellectual property includes:

• an oil expeller incorporating a number of unique features;
• a hydraulically-driven mixer that uses straight cut gears to stimulate mixing, and high temperatures to enhance molecular activity;
• a filtering device christened ‘the Cauldron’ that allows the glycerine to settle while separating off excess methanol; and
• ‘the Chantrelle’, a device that uses the thermal energy of the fatty acid methyl ester and the movement of air to remove any remaining methanol.

“The BioCube is extraordinarily effective as even the by-products can be used as fertiliser or even as high nutrition biscuits for refugees,” says inventor Sandy Kelly.

Another unique aspect of the BioCube is its business model. “We identified that a further aspect of the BioCube lay in changing the business model from that currently employed by the biodiesel processor manufacturers,” Kelly says.

“The Biofuel Partnership developed a ‘cradle to grave’ approach by supplying all chemicals within a distributor network – a philosophy currently unique within the industry.”

Website: www.biofuelpartnership.com