What is Biofuel? How Does it Work in a Car?

What are Biofuels?

Biofuels are fuels from biomass or organic matter like plants and animal waste. Unlike fossil fuels, which take millions of years to form, biofuels can be produced relatively quickly from renewable resources. Biofuels, also called alternative or renewable fuels, have emerged as a cleaner and more sustainable option than conventional petroleum fuels.

How Biofuels Work in a Car Engine

Biofuels let us fuel our cars without relying entirely on oil. Ethanol is popular and comes from plants like corn. They blend it into gasoline to make E10 or E15. Your engine burns a lot like regular gas when compressing and igniting. Biodiesel works the same - it's made from veggie oils or waste cooking grease. They mix it with regular diesel for B5 and B20. When injected, it vaporises fast and combusts like petroleum diesel. So whether you're filling up with an ethanol blend or biodiesel mix, your car's engine doesn't know the difference. The biofuel burns like gas or diesel to get your wheels turning down the road.

Which Indian Vehicles Use Biodiesel?

• Regarding biodiesel in India, there's still room for growth, but progress is being made. Biodiesel blends are making inroads, mainly in government vehicles and public transportation, to help clean up emissions.

• Several Indian cities now mandate all public transit buses to run on B5, a 5% biodiesel blend. Delhi, India's most polluted metro, has gone a step further, requiring B10 fuels. Cities like Mangalore, Bangalore, and Kochi have hundreds of buses filled with a coconut oil-based biodiesel mix instead of diesel. This biofuel adoption drive aims to curb air pollution from older transportation fleets in urban zones.

• Beyond buses, municipal garbage trucks in Delhi, Pune, and other municipalities now operate on jatropha-based biodiesel blends. Using biofuels allows them to avoid landfill methane release from organic waste. Indian Railways also tests 5% biodiesel for long-distance trains on some routes. The fuel comes from cooking oil used by caterers.

• So, while average Indian vehicles don't commonly use biodiesel, government fleets are prioritising blends from 5% to 20% for public transit. More refuelling stations and distribution logistics still need to develop before India's biodiesel story can succeed nationwide. However, cities are helping drive early adoption based on eco-benefits.

Advantages of Biofuels

Here are some compelling reasons why biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel need to play a bigger role in meeting our fuel demands:

1. Renewable Energy Source

Foremost, biofuels provide us with energy extracted from plants in a short period – making them a renewable source, unlike finite fossil fuels. With better agricultural methods and bioengineering of fuel crops, they can supplement rising fuel demands without aggravating resource depletion.

2. Reduction in Greenhouse Gas Emissions 

Biofuels burn cleaner than conventional fuels, emitting considerably fewer greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Ethanol blends reduce particulate emissions that cause respiratory diseases. Biodiesel also decreases diesel engine carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and soot emissions.

However, the actual pollution levels depend on the feedstock cultivation practices employed. For example, clearing forests to grow biofuel crops releases CO2 and may negate their net emission benefits.

3. Improved Energy Security  

Biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel can be domestically produced, allowing countries to expand their energy self-sufficiency. This insulating effect shields nations from global oil supply disruptions and price instability. It also reduces their reliance on politically volatile regions for fuel imports.

4. Economic Boost in Rural Areas

Increasing biofuel production, be it from sugarcane ethanol or oilseed biodiesel, encourages farmers to allocate more land for fuel crops. This initiative can potentially rejuvenate rural incomes and employment in the agricultural sector, particularly in developing nations. Constructing bio-refineries close to farming areas ensures stable cash flow for farmers and stimulates rural economies by generating job opportunities throughout the supply chain.

Future of Biofuels

Biofuels are highly relevant to the decarbonisation dialogues shaping future mobility solutions. Here are three key aspects that will govern biofuels' continued integration in transportation.

A. Advances in Biofuel Technology 

More government and private funding for biofuel innovations are unlocking new feedstocks like crop residues, municipal waste, algae oils, and superior ethanol synthesis methods. These developments promise to improve lifecycle emission balances, land-use efficiencies, and competitiveness with conventional fuels.

For instance, experimental routes to upgrade ethanol, like acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) fermentation, gasification, and catalytic conversion, may soon lead to viable systems.

B. Government Policies and Regulations

Several governments now actively promote biofuel adoption by setting mandatory blending targets, tax exemptions for renewable diesel or ethanol mix fuels, and higher emission standards. Such policy directives have spawned tremendous growth in global ethanol and biodiesel capacities over the past decade.

Many regions are deliberating higher blend thresholds for ethanol and biodiesel based on compatibility research. Such blending mandate increases will likely stimulate matching supply expansions and infrastructure build-outs.

C. Trends in the Automotive Sector

Automakers are turning modern powertrains to work across multiple fuels, electrification, and hybridisation to hedge against fuel price or supply uncertainties. Developing engines optimised for ethanol or methanol flex-fuel abilities will allow vehicles to capture future cost advantages between energy sources during their service life.

Conclusion

With oil reserves diminishing and intensifying climate change effects, biofuels offer a ray of hope to restructure our energy ecosystem gradually. We must tap into biofuels’ unique synergies with petroleum products for a less painful energy transition over the next decades. Sustained government commitment and private sector partnerships are imperative to unleash biofuels’ full decarbonisation potential through continued innovation.

With holistic analysis of environmental impacts, bioenergy crops coupled with carbon capture mechanisms promise major economy-wide emission offsets. Finding the right balance to harness each option’s strengths will be key.

Frequently Asked Questions

Explore More:

• Flex-Fuel Vehicles

• Types of Car Engine

• Basic Car Knowledge