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

Steve Harding, CEO, PMP Group

PMP Group backs technology with an environmental advantage – to the great advantage of many industries seeking emissions reductions in the era of carbon trading. Australian Innovation spoke to PMP CEO, Steve Harding.

Australian Innovation (AI): PMP started as a grass roots project in the 1970s, but arguably climate change and environmental sustainability have only become high priorities on government agendas in recent years. What inspired your early environmental focus?

Steve Harding (SH): Initially the PMP Group was a plumbing company but it then saw that the environment was becoming an important aspect of people’s lives. We are a water and wastewater treatment, design and construction company. So a lot of the things we were doing then had an environmental bent; [for example] getting water quality right so that it goes back into rivers and waterways at the right level. Th at was the sort of thing that the directors at that time saw as important – and we continue to do so today.

AI: Could you briefl y describe some of PMP’s most innovative strategies for reducing our ecological footprint?

SH: We are heavily involved in methane capture projects, which we like to call CARMHA – Covered Anaerobic Reactor Methane Harvesting Activities. There are a number of CARMHA projects we’ve completed both in Australia and internationally that use the methane gas from treatment plants as a resource. In some instances it is used for generating electricity and in others for fuelling boilers.

Because anaerobic treatment plants are capital intensive, we’ve also developed a small digester that we can manufacture very quickly at a much cheaper rate. So we can actually achieve the same outcome of capturing methane and using electricity on farms at an aff ordable price.

We back technology that has an environmental advantage, or can show an improved environmental application. We don’t actually push any particular product but we would support, for example, a product that has an aeration system, and uses low levels of energy, as it wouldn’t require as much power in the long term, and would therefore have good environmental outcomes.

AI: PMP Bioenergy has worked across many industries such as municipal sewerage, piggeries, rendering plants, abattoirs, tapioca plants and other food processing industries. What is the energy generated from these sources best used for?

SH: We can generate electricity from anything that produces high levels of organic waste. Th ere are many specific wastes that we simply treat differently. But they are all quite good for energy use and you can’t really rate one above the other. There’s an application for each of those areas.

The question of what purposes bioenergy resources are best suited to serving really depends on the particular sites that they are used for. Rendering plants have typically used the biogas from their waste plants as a gas for their boilers so it obviously has a direct advantage to them. After tapioca plants have been treated, they use their power to run factories from the waste but they could also export excess waste to the electricity grid in the right environment.

‘Scrubbers’ for a PMP CDM project in Sumatra, Indonesia

The appropriate use for the waste needs to be assessed properly and that’s what we do. We measure how much energy we can achieve against their necessary applications on the site and try to fi nd the best solution. For example, should we put a bigger generator in to generate more electricity because we can put it into the grid or should we just have a small generator and waste a portion of that gas? It really comes down to the site-specific assessment, which we provide our clients.

AI: PMP advocates the Government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. If implemented next year, how will it aff ect PMP’s numerous specialist projects for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions?

SH: Th e scheme will enhance our services as Australians become more aware of the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Overall, I think people are going to become more conscious of this need because there will be a greater legal obligation to either pay or spend money to reduce emissions with smarter and more environmentally friendly technology. In terms of carbon trading, there are additional works that could potentially occur in areas such as agricultural and food processing.

And I think there is a public perception that environmental aspects should be taken into account in Australian business. So the scheme will also impact Australian businesses to the extent that they are personally affected by the dollar and the public’s perception of environmental value. But the domestic projects that are out there and the people who want to do the right thing environmentally will have to stand up on their own merit.

AI: The PMP Group prides itself on being a specialist in Clean Development Mechanisms. How does it help companies wanting to take part in carbon emission reduction projects in developing countries?

SH: The nature of the business we do is design and construction. We can advise clients on how to maximise the amount of return they will receive from their projects because we have a solid understanding of what the UN is looking for in relation to certain technologies.

We can also assist companies with their paperwork and the validation process and provide all the appropriate information. We can do the feasibility studies on the amount of gas that will be generated from the different sorts of waste and propose or design the appropriate technology for projects.

We are a company that has a culture based on engineering and plumbing. On that basis we can provide very well engineered solutions that also have practical applications. So we can save money for developers by producing solutions that are very practical long-term and can be operated very easily, whilst also creating very robust plants that clients can rely on from an income stream point of view.

Website: http://pmpgrp.com