http://www.estrepublicain.fr/actualite/ ... du-petrole
With this means we should even be able to quickly mop up our "dangerous" deficits
Sandaucourt - Unusual Fuel K The man who makes oil
The second-generation biofuel was invented by a Vosgien, before the biofuel, in 1973. Since then he has fallen into oblivion. Yet Grégoire Kaplan can turn lawn grass into black gold.
Sandaucourt. "I did not invent anything. I have just put end to end three processes that have been in all good chemistry books for more than a century, "says modestly Gregory Kaplan. In his residence at Sandaucourt, this doctor in geochemistry lived a peaceful retreat observing with a certain amusement the gestures of the revolutionaries of energy.
Their way, this Vosgien has already borrowed there 38 years, at the time of the first oil shock, by developing a fuel produced with any vegetable waste: the fuel K. His idea was to recreate the mechanism of genesis of the oils. What nature has done by transforming organic matter, man must be able to reproduce it, he thinks. After some time of research and testing, he succeeds in transforming the cellulose of the plants, in sugar by hydrolysis, then in fatty acids by bacterial fermentation.
"Then I applied the process developed by the German Kolb in ... 1849 which had shown that under electrolysis, the fatty acids were transformed into saturated hydrocarbons", explains Gregoire Kaplan.
With this process, 4 kg of dry herbs give 1 kilo of black gold, in less than a week! And most importantly, the product is perfectly adaptable to any engine. "Studies conducted by a consortium of laboratories co-financed by the European Union in the amount of 9 million francs also showed that the process could be industrialized and that the product was even more stable than gasoline, resulting from the fossil energy, "says Grégoire Kaplan.
A patent filed
Since 1973, the man has filed a patent for this invention, but no one has ever been interested in it.
Only the city of Concarneau has set up a project to treat its green algae. "The banks were ready to follow. A German group had pledged to buy the fuel produced, but we never found an investor to industrialize the process "regrets Grégoire Kaplan.
Yet in 2002, a new study had shown that the cost of production of this plant species was identical to that of fossil fuel.
At a time when the price of fuel breaks all records at the pump, the fuel K becomes again economically very interesting. "I am always ready to discuss with industrialists" underlines the inventor who is convinced that the oil lobby is not totally foreign to the disinterest shown for his find.
Jean-Marc TOUSSAINT
