Watermelon juice as ethanol fuel for vehicles

Posted by Harvinder

August 29, 2009

A number of auto makers are producing cars that can feed on ethanol. Such cars range from the upcoming Volkswagen Saveiro pickup, to the already available 621HP Bentley Continental Supersports. Ethanol is derived from corn (not limited to corn only), but the problem with corn is the large amount of it required to produce alcohol fuel, also, the process requires large quantities of water.

Apparently, there is another solution to obtain ethanol. A new study has revealed that watermelon juice can be used to produce ethanol fuel. In the US, about 360,000 tons of watermelons are left to rot each year. Farmers dispose between 20% – 40% of their crops, as these watermelons don’t look appealing enough to customers. Things like an odd shape, size that is too small, damage caused by animal are reasons for this.

The use of watermelon juice, based on current unwanted availability, can result in production of 2.5 million gallons of ethanol each year. Last year, US produced 9 billion gallons of ethanol, from corn or molasses (byproduct of the processing of sugar cane or sugar beets into sugar). The use of watermelon juice can help cut the use of corn or molasses by 15%. Currently, Texas-based Common Sense Agriculture is developing a prototype watermelon juice-to-ethanol processing plant. To learn more about watermelon juice as an ethanol source, please click here. We have also recently published a story regarding using human urine as a source for hydrogen fuel, for fuel cell / hydrogen cars.

Source.

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