ARGENTINA: Argentine scientists look to sugar beets to make the solutions that keep your car running

Most people think of beets, corn and sugar cane as basic foodstuffs, but Argentine scientists keen to take biofuels a step further are using them to develop a greener alternative to petrochemicals. The pioneering project is being developed by Quimica True, a small automotive products plant just outside Buenos Aires which up until now has devoted itself to producing conventional auto-related liquids based on petroleum-derived chemicals. Their aim is to use bioalcohols - alcohols produced from crops -- as a replacement for traditional fossil fuels to make products ranging from brake fluid to engine coolant. In order to do this, project manager Gustavo Bianchi says they are developing a chemical catalyst that will produce ethylene glycol and diethanolamine, the two chemicals that form the basis of automotive fluids. "Quimica True uses ethylene glycol and diethanolamine for the automotive industry derived from the petroleum industry. What we want to do is replace this petrochemical process and derive ethylene glycol and diethanolamine from alcohol from sugar cane or sugar beets. This is a 'know-how' process, to make bioalcohols instead of petrochemicals," director of the project Gustavo Bianchi said. Like many small Argentine businesses, Quimica True was hit hard by the country's 2001-2002 economic crisis in which the peso currency was devalued and fell sharply against the dollar, making imports too expensive. High global oil prices aggravated the situation and prompted the firm to think of other ways to get hold of the fuel they needed to produce their chemical range. Bianchi says that bioalcohols, derived primarily from sugar cane and sugar beets, provided the perfect economic solution, and funded by a $70,000 government loan the company set-up a laboratory to being experimenting. Now the company hopes to produce its whole product range using vegetable-based alcohols within two years, and with bioalcohol averaging at around $15 a barrel they are expecting to slash operation costs. "The advantages on one hand are economic. The a barrel of crude costs 60 dollars while one litre of alcohol is 30 centavos in Argentine pesos, not in dollars. This is one advantage. The other advantage is it is not necessary for Quimica True to import (petroleum) if we are able to produce sufficient bioalcohol for our own consumption. And we can do that with this development, in two years we could have a pilot plant for our own consumption." Quimica True company president Domingo Gatto says the possibilities are immense, and in the future it could be possible to replace at least 50 percent of petrochemical products with bioalcohol, even producing less environmentally harmful versions of polythene, paints and fertilizers. "We are talking about a raw material (crude oil) which our country imports eight thousand tonnes of each month, and Quimica True only uses out of this eight thousand tonnes, 150 tonnes. So this shows you the magnitude available to someone with the needed capital and the markets, if they took an interest in this," Quimica True company president Domingo Gatto said. As one of the world's biggest exporters of agricultural products, Argentina has already seen a great potential to develop its national biofuel industry. The South American country supplies around 80 million tonnes of grains per year, and Agricultural Secretary Miguel Campos said recently Argentina would "become a leader" in the biofuel sector chiefly because of the climatic variations that allow it to grow crops from sugar cane and sunflower to corn and soybeans. In order to jump-start the country's nascent biofuels industry, the national congress passed a law in April requiring a 5 percent mix of these "green" fuels with traditional fuels and offering tax breaks to companies. Similar measures are being taken by policy makers world-wide, and analysts say that demand for vegetable-based products will continue to rise as long as crude oil prices remain elevated. However with projects like the one based at Quimica True still in the formative stage, it may still be some time before crop growers will look at the humble sugar beet and think of brake oil.

ITN Source | September 23, 2006

Tags:. .exporters. .devoted. .agricultural. .buenos. .slash