Objective To use rape oil and straw as a substitute for diesel fuel for domestic and drying requirements, as fertiliser and a cattle feed.This project uses the rape produced from an area of 40 ha.Rape straw (150 to 200 t/y) will be pelletized and/or briquetted to obtain a fuel usable in an automatic loading combustion plant.The rape oil (4,000 l) obtained by a double screwpress will be used to fuel two different engines. After purification some will be used in a modified tractor engine, the remainder, after ethyl/methyl esterification, in a conventional diesel engine.Residual straw (30 to 200 t) will be ploughed-in for soil improvement while the high oil content (70 to 75 t) rape cake will be used as cattle feed.The oil extraction is made by use of a double screw press from Monforts + Reiners Co. The press is fed directly from the seed store. The oil flows with the pressing temperature of 60 deg. C. to settling tanks. The residues are passed back to the filling funnels. The oil passing through a 10 mu filter and is stored in the filling station for later use, either directly in the rape-oil tractor, or for transesterification.The rape meal (expeller cake) is automatically transported to a silo which is cleared regularly by the transporter of the animal feed mill.A small scale transesterification unit is being developed for on-farm operation.The use of new kinds of catalysts with long duration stability and a high degree of automatic operation and control of process parameters allows for operation of the chemical process by agrotechnologists without a special formation. The unit is designed for optimum process performance, high product quality, minimum energy requirements and high reliability of the equipment. The preceeding transesterification for the free acids with an acidic catalysts is continuous and is double batch for the basic catalytic step for transesterification of the triglycerides. A separation and wash-out step guarantees the quality of the final products: methylester as diesel fuel and glycerol for the chemical industry.The straw-pelletizer unit consists of a chipping unit which reduces the straw-bales into 2 to 5 cm long stalks. These are intermediately stored in a buffer from where they are transferred by a screw-conveyor to the pelletizer, which operates with dentate matrix and rollers. The high-density pellets are fed to a cooler and conveyed to a silo. The electric energy for the unit is generated by a methylester fuelled diesel-generator set. Programme(s) ENG-ENALT 2C - Programme (EEC) of demonstration projects relating to the exploitation of alternative energy sources and to energy saving and the substitution of hydrocarbons, 1983-1985 Topic(s) 3.2 - INDUSTRY Call for proposal Data not available Funding Scheme DEM - Demonstration contracts Coordinator GES. F. ENTWICKLUNGSTECHNOLOG. EU contribution No data Address INDUSTRIESTRASSE 5173 ALDENHOVEN Germany See on map Total cost No data
