6/18/07 - Thanks to everyone who helped make our road rally last Friday such a success.  See what the Philadelphia Inquirer and Fox 29 had to say about the event.

5/24/07 - We have ignition!  Today we made history when our pilot plant operator Steve poured the first of our production-quality fuel into the tank of his 2002 Jetta TDI.  For those of you who offered to drive demonstrate our fuel, look for a phone call or e-mail from us in the coming days.

5/16/07 - We've been selected to present at Early Stage East, the East Coast's premier venture fair. If you missed us at April's Angel Venture Fair, join us June 14th in Wilmington, DE.

4/16/07 - Want to know more about us? Visit our booth at Philadelphia's Angel Venture Fair, Tuesday April 27, 2007.

4/9/07 - We've just been notified that we were selected as one of 19 finalists for a Philadelphia Sustainability Award.  Join us at the awards event on April 26th.

3/16/07 - Our first picture of butter-diesel.  Based on our in-house quality testing, it looks good, but we still have to send it out for a full panel of tests against the ASTM spec. One thing that we can already see is that biodiesel from butter gels at a warmer temperature than the other fuel we've made, even from tallow and trap grease.

3/5/07 - We've got butter biodiesel.  We had lots of other grease in the queue so we just got around to processing the butter from the butter sculpture last week.  It converted to FAME's pretty nicely - a little slower than we're used to seeing we think because we had to leave a lot of the milk solids in with the grease fraction because they were too fine to filter and these solids cannibalized our catalyst.  We should have a picture of our finished fuel next week.

1/15/07 - So what is butter anyway? According to our  analysis, butter is 7% water, 12% milk solids, and 81% grease.  See a centrifuged, separated sample here.

1/14/07 - We just spent a week at the Pennsylvania Farm Show, where all the buzz was about how we'll be converting the 800 pound butter sculpture into biodiesel. Read the press release about the event here. The show is now over and We've Got Butter. We're starting a test run of a small sample today or tomorrow to make sure that we can process it.

12/6/06 - Missed us on National Public Radio's Morning Edition today? Listen to the story here.

11/16/06 - Happy Thanksgiving! And yes, if you can deliver it to us, we'll take your used turkey fryer grease.

10/23/06 - Today we were honored by Governor Rendell as recipients of the Renewable Energy Leadership award.  See the award and read more here.

10/2/06 - We've completed the last piece of equipment we need and are now gearing up for a busy fall, getting ready to put out fuel for drive testing.  If you have a diesel vehicle and would like to be part of our test team, e-mail us. 

8/24/06 - At long last, we filed a patent application on our conversion technology.  Now we wait.

7/19/06 - We were honored by a visit from Concrete Pictures, a local video production company that's creating a new series on sustainability.  They filmed a segment at our demonstration facility as part of a pilot they're developing to pitch to a major network.  We'll let y0u know who to write to get this on the air.

7/14/06 - After months of work, we submitted an application today for additional grant funding.  This funding would go toward the construction of a 3 million gallon production facility using our technology to convert trap grease into high quality biodiesel.  We should hear results of our application sometime this fall.

7/11/06 - We finally got the results from our ASTM testing back and we passed with flying colors, even on criteria that are not yet in the standard but are under consideration by ASTM.  Now we scale up our production.  We processed our first 100 gallon batch last week and are running quality tests on it now to make sure there's no variation in fuel produced at this volume.

6/14/06 - Read all about us in the latest issue of Biodiesel Magazine! Download a pdf of the article here, or read it online.

5/26/06 - More pictures! We had the honor of a visit from Donna Chiarelli, a wonderful photographer based in Kutztown, PA.  She's collecting photos of alternative energy projects for a possible Consumer Reports' book on what consumers can do to use energy more efficiently and effectively.

5/8/06 - We have a winner on our team! On May 4, 2006, Dr. Mike Haas of the USDA was awarded the Gold Medal by the Philadelphia Federal Executive Board for "Private Sector Involvement - Individual" for his work with Philadelphia Fry-o-Diesel. Congratulations Mike! To say you deserved this is an understatement.

4/28/06 - The first picture of our fuel.  If you want to see what we start with and what we end up with at the end of our process, see pictures here. 

4/11/06 - We had the honor of a visit from Secretary Kathleen McGinty of the  Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.  See a photo of her visit (note our carbon filters in the background!)

4/6/06 - Well, I think we're in the time-intensive-but-not-much-to-report stage of our work.  We are continuing to do test runs under various conditions, and with various sources of grease, so we can test the constraints of our process.  We have also turned our attention to fuel quality, and have finally produced fuel that we believe would meet the ASTM specification for biodiesel. (Thanks to Randall von Wedel's brilliant invention, the "Phlip" test, we can get a quick reading on the quality of our fuel prior to sending it out for a full lab work-up.)  We're also retesting our bigger processing vessels to make sure we're ready run to a bigger batch shortly.

 3/3/06 - January and February just flew by.  We're continuing to work on refining our process, testing the effect of various amounts of methanol and catalyst on our reaction times, and mixing in some fryer grease with the trap grease to see if that changes anything.  Several of us attended the National Biodiesel Board conference, as well as a Sustainable Biodiesel Summit that was held just before.  We've come back with a lot of new ideas and a lot of new contacts for catalysts and sorbents.

12/29/05 - Where'd we disappear to?  If you read the article in November's Philadelphia magazine, you know some of the challenges we've faced over the last few months.  We are continuing to work with elected officials and our neighbors to make sure they're comfortable with what we're doing.  We've been focusing on a number of safety initiatives like installing additional exterior lighting and re-certifying our sprinkler system.  At the same time, we're keeping the project moving. We are working with our 1 gallon process vessel to test the effects of varying catalyst concentration, reaction time, and water content of our feedstock.  We're also looking forward to working with two new Drexel University Chemical Engineering student teams who will  perform modeling of our process as well as conventional biodiesel production as their student design projects.

10/14/05 - A whole month with almost nothing to report.  We're in the stage of construction where the last 10% takes 90% of the time.  We've completed a full water test of the processor and have sealed up any leaks.  We've tested all the pumps and replaced seals where needed.  We're finishing the safety manual, making sure our labeling is correct....all the critical, thankless tasks that have to be done before we can move forward.

9/14/05 - We have fuel! Yes, it's a tiny sample, and no, we have no idea if it even comes close to ASTM spec, but it's a start. This fuel was made using our methodology by our friends at the USDA lab in Wyndmoor.

9/12/05 - We just finished a two day on-site meeting and created a punch list of construction, safety, and beautification tasks.  We were not able to do a flow test of the process because the plumbing is still  incomplete.  We focused instead on getting the bench area set up so that we can do some small-scale testing.

8/31/05 - Construction is almost complete.  The welders have finished the processing tank legs and now that the major equipment is in place, the plumbers can finish up.  Next week the whole team comes in for a 2-day meeting and a walk through of the facility.

8/16/05 - Construction is underway. About half of the electrical work is complete, and the welding and plumbing should start this week.  (We need to weld supports for our processing tanks.)  Our facility will house both bench scale and pilot scale equipment, so that we have two different scales at which to conduct testing. Major conversion process research will take place at bench scale, and fine tuning will take place on the pilot scale. Plus, moving between scales requires research and engineering in and of itself. Our priority is to get the bench scale up and operational, since that is the first phase of the project.

8/3/05 - Our equipment layout is complete, and construction is beginning.  Electrical and plumbing start later this week, and we're on track to have construction complete by the end of August. 

 7/25/05 - Most of our major equipment has arrived and we're finalizing our equipment layout with the hopes to begin construction next week.

7/13/05 - Happy Birthday Fry-o-Diesel!

7/6/05 - We've purchased our most critical equipment - two 200 gallon processing tanks.  These are bigger than we need, but when you're buying used, you take what you can get.  And the extra volume will give us the flexibility to create bigger batches once we've got the process optimized.  This could be very important: our grant requires that we generate  1,200 gallons of biodiesel and 3,000 gallons of heating oil by November 2006. Since we don't know how long the initial process optimization research might take, we might only have a short amount of time to reach the grant production requirement. All the other equipment - pumps, heat exchangers, test equipment - is coming in as we find it.

6/24/05 - We've hired our lab technician, Stephen Kasprzyk, a recent Drexel graduate.  He'll start right after Labor Day, when he returns from his cross-country trip.

6/2/05 - We're back on track and our priorities are to find equipment and secure all of our permits. Our new timeline calls for us to be operational August 1, but that very much depends on how quickly we can find critical equipment.

5/26/05 - WE GOT THE FINAL GRANT AGREEMENT.  After a bit of celebrating we'll regroup and see if we can construct a new project timeline.

5/16/05 - We are still waiting on the final grant agreement.  We're ready to order equipment but can't commit the funds until we know the grant has been completely approved. We had been told to expect the grant agreement at the end of March and had built our timeline around that assumption.  The delay in the grant will probably mean a delay in the start of production, although we're optimistic we can still flip the switch some time this summer.  Stay tuned....

4/20/05 - We've got a lease on a site and are starting the permitting process. Release of the grant funds has been delayed until later this month, so we're holding off on ordering equipment.  Depending on how quickly we can find the equipment we need, the delay in funding may push us back as much as a month.  We're still expecting to be operational sometime this summer.  In the meantime, our Drexel student team and Mike Haas at the USDA have been working to characterize various samples of trap grease that Drexel collected.

3/22/05 - We're on a roll!  Following a two day meeting last week we have preliminary drawings of the production process and have identified a site in the Kensington neighborhood of northeast Philadelphia.  Over the next two weeks we'll try to get a lease agreement on the space, and finalize our drawings so that we can order equipment.

2/16/05 - Assuming a release of the grant funds by April 1, we project that the demonstration processor will be operational sometime this summer.  We're now focusing on finding a suitable site.  At our next project meeting in mid-March we will finalize our site selection and finalize the equipment design.

2/15/05 - Project conference call.  Firming up overall production design, identification of key equipment, siting, permitting issues, firm up time line.

1/6/05 - Project kick-off meeting in Philadelphia.  General discussion of timing and the overall process.  Short term focus is on characterization of trap grease to determine how best to pre-treat to make it an effective biofuels feedstock.