Just 10 seconds – that’s how long it takes Bar-Ilan University Chemistry Prof. (Emeritus) Aharon Gedanken to transform waste cooking oils into biodiesel!
Gedanken has devised a unique patent-pending microwave-based process to convert biomass to biofuels.
“Actually everyone can do it on a small scale in their home kitchen with a domestic microwave and a certain catalyst, which can be removed and recycled to carry out 10 times the same reaction,” he relays.
He is optimistic that his method can be adopted for large-scale industrial conversion of cooked oils (which may otherwise pose an environmental challenge) into biodiesel. “It is hoped that this will be the replacement for fossil oil in the future,” says the BIU scientist, named as one of Israel’s most highly cited researchers.
