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Chocolate to fuel African expedition

Misshapen walnut whips, crumbled flakes and jerry-cans of other chocolate waste are about to power a British expedition’s lorry more than 7,200 km across the Sahara to Timbuktu in Mali.

The carbon-saving truck is designed to test biodiesel distilled from reject sweets and other byproducts of British confectionery factories.

The simple “cooking” job, in which chocolate replaces petrochemicals in making bioethanol, was demonstrated at the Ecotec fuel plant in Preston, England on Wednesday by managing director Chris Elvey, using a blender, saucepan and electric hob.

Although his company processes up to 100 tonnes of chocolate a week for biofuel, he showed how half a litre could be made at home in 20 minutes.

“It isn’t new science,” he said, recalling how Rudolf Diesel originally thought that his revolutionary engine would run best on peanut oil.

“The Germans did a lot of work on biofuels during the war because they were short of oil. I remember my dad talking about speed-trial motorbikes using something similar which they called dope.”

Mr. Elvey’s 20 minutes of heating, stirring and mixing involved melting the sweet gunge into a tea-coloured liquid. Ten minutes in a blender with 100ml of methanol and a sprinkling of potassium hydroxide then produced the honey-coloured fuel.

Pumping it into his truck, Andy Pag, a 34-year-old Londoner who has led previous expeditions to Africa and Asia, said: “Chocolate isn’t the only biofuel with good carbon footprint results, but using it has other benefits. All this waste would be ending up on landfill sites if it didn’t come to Preston to be turned into fuel.”

The expedition to Mali hopes to be independently audited as carbon-negative.

Under the carbon offsetting system, the benefits of a small biodiesel maker, which will be set up in a village in Mali, can be taken into account in the calculation.

Stirring a clod of clay-coloured chocolate waste, Mr. Pag said: “If our calculations are correct, we will actually save 15 tonnes of carbon overall. We’re loading 200 litres of chocolate fuel for the journey, and we’ve got the processor to make more.”

Customers can fill diesel vehicles at Ecotec’s licensed pump but trained enthusiasts may try home production, so long as they don’t mind the smell of chocolate.

Mr. Pag said: “Our journey to Timbuktu should help clear up some of these misconceptions. A lot of people don’t realise that when biodiesel is made correctly, any unmodified diesel engine will run on it.” — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2007

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