A strong urge to innovate, willingness to work in a team, and readiness to welcome new ideas have helped students of R.N. Shetty Polytechnic to evolve a technique to extract bio-diesel from decayed coconuts.

The sixth semester students of diploma in mechanical engineering came out with a process to extract bio-diesel using chemicals such as methanol and sodium sulphate. They were guided department head Ganesh R. Chitnis and C.C. Gavimath of Visvesvaraya Technological University

Byproducts

Byproducts such as oil cakes and glycerine could be used for fertilizer and cosmetics industries, said principal S.P. Hiremath here on Wednesday.

He said the production of bio-diesel was the need of the hour as it was eco-friendly and relatively cheaper and could be made available at Rs. 34 a litre. It could be used on any diesel engine and for generating electricity in a cost effective way. Riyaz D. Maskewale, Manjunath Udameeshi, and Milton Carvalho had taken keen interest to complete the project, he said.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> National> Karnataka / by Vijaykumar Patil / Belagavi – April 02nd, 2015