Minicar uses peel fuel

Press, 17 June 1982, Page 25

Minicar uses peel fuel

In this oil-hungry world the day may not be’ too far off when officialdom will start to ask those of us who eat oranges to hang on to the - peel. The reason? In Japan a 550 cc minicar has been testrun successfully on a fuel of which orange peel oil was a major ingredient. The test was conducted jointly by the Agricultural Department of Mie University and a car-manufacturing cornpany. The fuel consisted of 75 per cent petrol and 25 per cent orange peel oil. The car's power output was exactly the same as it was when running on pure petrol. Orange peel contains oil of a type that has the same energy content as alcohol and a 17 per cent higher calorific value than petrol. However, its boiling and flash points are higher than those of alcohol and it has the added disadvantage of being difficult to ignite when used as engine fuel. Because of this, the university research group decided to mix the oil with readily

inflammable petrol to use as fuel for cars. In the minicar test, fuels consisting of petrol and orange peel oil were conducted using mixtures of various proportions. The test showed that the fuel in which 25 per cent of orange peel oil was mixed with petrol obtained a similar power output to that of 100 per cent petrol. Very little oil can be extracted from the peel of an orange, about 10.000 oranges being needed to obtain a litre of oil. Even so. given the quantity of oranges the world produces, it is estimated that 120.000 kilolitres of orange peel oil could be produced annually. Since the amount of oil obtained from orange peel is limited, it is not expected that it will replace petrol as the staple fuel for the car. but the research group is hopeful that it will become a supplement fuel for petrol. The group also believes that if the rate of mixture is less than 25 per cent, ordinary cars will run on it without need for adjustment.