Top of Page

Companies in Erie and State College partner on biodiesel production project

on

Three Pennsylvania companies are developing a more efficient way to make biodiesel.
 
About a decade ago Jack Matson, founder of the State College engineering and consulting firm Matson & Associates, started studying how to improve the biodiesel production process. The result differs in several ways from how the fuel is normally made.

For example, the standard way of making biodiesel involves sodium hydroxide, which mixes in with the resulting biodiesel and has to be removed from the final product. But the process used by Matson & Associates spinoff Matson Biofuels cuts out the sodium hydroxide. And while the conventional way of making biodiesel requires pre-treating raw materials with a lot of water and fatty acids, there’s no need for that with Matson Biofuels’ technique.

Also, the process Matson uses allows biodiesel to be produced continuously rather than a batch at a time, which is how it’s normally made, says Bob Parette, project manager at Matson & Associates.

Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Central and Northern PA connected Matson Biofuels with two companies in Erie: American Biodiesel Energy, which makes biodiesel, and Fluid Engineering, which makes equipment for uses like water treatment and power generation. Together the companies plan to design and build a system for putting Matson’s process to work. Parette expects testing to start next spring and for American Biodiesel Energy to run the system once the testing phase is complete.

The project’s cost is estimated at $600,000. Of that, Ben Franklin has loaned $140,000 and the state Department of Environmental Protection kicked in $167,000 through the Alternative Fuels Incentive Grant program.

Source: Bob Parette, Matson & Associates

Writer: Rebecca VanderMeulen

Energy, Manufacturing, News

Top