Don't Throw Out Your Alligator Fat, Put it in Your Gas Tank

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Leave it to researchers in Lafayette, Louisiana, to find a use for your unused alligator innards. Alligator skins are generally turned into fashionable products such as boots, wallets and golf bags. Alligator meat has a very mild taste and is low in fat and calories and high in protein. So what to do with approximately 15 million pounds per year of left over alligator fats?

Turn it into biodiesel, help reduce our dependence on foreign oil and eliminate disposal of the byproduct in landfills.

Researchers at the University of Louisiana's Chemical Engineering Department in Lafayette have found that alligator fat has high lipid content and has great potential for producing biodiesel that meets ASTM specifications.

Most biodiesel fuel is produced using virgin soybean oil or collected spent yellow grease. The industry is looking at a variety of non-food feedstock materials in the hopes of having less of an impact on food pricing.

The experiments are currently just bench-scale lab tests, and no one has stepped up to build a pilot or commercial-scale plant, but alligator fats could be added to the list of inedible oils that can be converted into biofuels. Algae oil, jatropha oil, honge oil and some citrus oils have been proven to have the lipid content to produce high-quality biodiesel.

Industrial Info's databases provide a comprehensive outline of all current development activities in the emerging alternative fuels market. Our North American Biodiesel Database covers 143 operational plants and 97 plants under development. Our North American Ethanol Database covers 216 plants currently in operation and 115 plants in various phases of development. Our North American Wood Fuel Pellet Database includes 68 operational plants producing greater than 25,000 tons annually, and 39 projects in progress.

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