Now, 'shrimp cocktail' to power cars and trucks

Washington, July 30 (ANI): Shrimp is no longer just a sophisticated appetiser, it has re-invented itself to become a component of bio-fuel.

Yes, you heard it right. Scientists in China have developed a catalyst made from shrimp shells that could transform production of biodiesel fuel into a faster, less expensive, and more environmentally friendly process.

Their study is to be published in the Aug. 20 issue of ACS' Energy and Fuels, a bi-monthly journal.

Xinsheng Zheng and colleagues note that an energy-hungry world, concerned about global warming, increasingly puts its future fuel hopes on renewable fuels like biodiesel.

However, biodiesel production processes of the modern times require catalysts to speed up the chemical reactions that transform soybean, canola, and other plant oils into diesel fuel.

Traditional catalysts cannot be reused and must be neutralized with large amounts of water - another increasingly scarce resource - leaving behind large amounts of polluted wastewater.

Therefore, in the new study, researchers describe development of a new catalyst produced from shrimp shells.

In laboratory tests, the shrimp shell catalysts converted canola oil to biodiesel faster and more efficiently than some conventional catalysts.

The new catalysts also can be reused and the process minimizes waste production and pollution, the scientists note. (ANI)