Biodiesel by transesterification (Chavanne)
Biodiésel por transesterificación (Chavanne)
- Date
- 1937 · confidence high
- Place
- Brussels, Belgium
- Credited to
- Georges Chavanne
- Field
- Matter & energy
What it is
Chavanne patented a method of converting vegetable oils into esters that run as diesel fuel in diesel engines. It is the origin of modern biodiesel, which flows more easily than pure vegetable oil.
Rudolf Diesel had already shown an engine on peanut oil in 1900; Chavanne patented transesterification (Belgian patent 422,877, 1937).
What it led to
- rapeseed and soy biodiesel from the 1980s
- European biofuel standards
- biodiesel-diesel blends