Experimenting with biodiesel

As a result of the hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which caused damage to petroleum producers in the Gulf of Mexico, coupled with unrest in the Middle East, many Americans find themselves paying dramatically higher prices for any product with connections to petroleum. Not surprisingly, their interest in home-grown fuels, such as biodiesel, is growing. This prompted me to think about using biodiesel (fatty acid methyl esters or FAMEs) to teach general chemistry principles, especially since the synthesis of biodiesel is a green process. (At this time, however, the large-scale synthesis of biodiesel from virgin oils is not cost effective compared with petroleum-based diesel without government subsidies.)