Pistachio is one of the most consuming food. It has been recognized widely as one of the fat-burner food. However, recent study shows that one of the kind peanut is potentially to be organized as one of energy resources. Scientists in Iran have conducted that pistachio peanut can produce biofuel. Throughout this, the demands of biofuel in world can be achieved by organizing the waste of agricultural products particularly from pistachio peanut.
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| Pistachio is considered as the source of biofuel today (image is downloaded from foodsafetynewsdotcom) |
The increasing demands of fuel for transportation has affected the governments to find renewable resources as the fossil fuels will be running out. The needs of energy resources are not merely to supply the electricity aspect. The energy supply comprises gases and liquid forms which are needed for transportation, cooking, and the last is power plants. Many of these sectors are supported dependently from natural-gas and petroleum. Therefore, one of the most prominent solution comes from the agricultural.
As we know that fuel is produced from the derivation of hydrocarbon chains. In term of hydrocarbon chains, there are classifications based on the hydrogen and carbon bonds which are alkanes, alkenes, and alkyne. In crude oil, we divide the hydrocarbon compounds into several groups by distilling them throughout temperature. Subsequently, the process employs many methodologies requiring bigger expenses. This issue is solved by taking advantage from the biofuel process which directly produces varies of hydrocarbon compounds.
Methodologies of producing biofuel from pistachio
There are three methodologies in fabricating the biofuel from agricultural plants. First is from the chemical process named transesterification which employs extraction process to produce vegetable oil. We classify this method as first generation process and the product is called first generation of biofuel. The second process is employing the fermentation process conducted by the bacteria. This process produces methane gas as the bacteria consumes the waste to do metabolism.
Interestingly, the Iranian scientists suggested that the best method of producing biofuel is pyrolysis (Taghizadeh-Alisaraei, et al., 2017). The pyrolysis process has been proved to produce higher amount of product with various of biofuel products. Based on their research, the pyrolysis method produced 154.7-212.4 million liters and 18.8-40.5 thousands of tons of bio-oil and char respectively. On the other hand, both ethanol and biogas were accounted for 42-47.6 million liters and 103.5 million cubic respectively. Collectively speaking, those biofuels were manufactured by fermentation and digestion processes.
Research employing pyrolysis process proved that the method is better than any other method. We classify this method as second generation of biofuel as the product is methane. The third generation is produced by advantaging the algae as the raw source. The name third generation is coined because algae can produce more significant biofuel than its ancestors. Biodiesel, gasoline, butanol, methane and jet fuel can be produced from deriving the first product.
Pistachio as the future biofuel producer
It cannot be avoided that the producing of biofuel needs agricultural waste. For many countries, particularly in developing countries depending on agricultural sectors, biofuel can become the alternative income since the demands are increasing. The related paper shows that in Iran itself, the potential number can be achieved hundreds million liters of bio-oil, thousands tons of char and gas. This number is merely predicted only from pistachio.
Pistachio is one of the favorable peanuts among societies around the world. In the middle east, pistachio has been consumed for many years and it has been considered as a gift if someone visits the countries of producer. With the increasing trend of healthy life, pistachio also becomes one of food that is suggested in dietary. Therefore, the productions which currently are produced in tons by Iran, the US, Turkey and China will grow steadily and perhaps they elevate rapidly.
To be concluded, the agricultural biowaste from pistachio is potential to be functioned as raw material for biofuel production. According to the paper, the best method in producing the biofuel is pyrolysis because the results are in two forms which are char and bio-oil.
Reference
Ahmad Taghizadeh-Alisaraei, Hossein Alizadeh Assar, Barat Ghobadian, Ali Motevali. Potential of biofuel production from pistachio waste in Iran. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 72 (2017) pg 510-522.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2017.01.111