Recently, alligator fat was identified as a source to produce biodiesel. Every year, about 15 million pounds of alligator fat are disposed of in landfills as a waste byproduct of the alligator meat and skin industry. Studies have shown that biodiesel produced from alligator fat is similar in composition to biodiesel created from soybeans, and is cheaper to refine since it is primarily a waste product.
The report at the latest meeting of the American Chemical Society follows up on an earlier study on the potential use of gator fat as a source of biodiesel fuel. It’s cool research, but there is obviously a limited amount of alligator fat lying around. Using fat from such common sources as chicken, pork and beef could be much more practical for commercial implementation, according to Thomas Junk, Ph.D. from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, whose earlier alligator fat study used a batch reactor and says the gator improvement came because they switched to a flow reactor to process the fat. “We set up a flow reactor, and the reaction converting alligator fat to biodiesel happened within a few minutes. That’s important for commercial manufacturing, where you want to produce as much fuel as quickly as possible.”
Living the great U.S.A. always provides options - you can choose between putting a “Tiger in your tank”, a “Dinosaur in your tank”, or a “Gator in your tank”.