BYU students turn coconut oil into biodiesel

PROVO — Coconuts have all kinds of uses, from the ridiculous to the reverent.

Comedians banged together coconut halves to make the clip-clop sounds of hooves as they drily pretended to ride horses with regal seriousness in the cult-movie hit "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." Medical journals report that in a pinch, coconut milk has been used as an IV fluid, and in many cultures, the coconut palm is considered the "Tree of Life" for all it provides.

But in Tonga, where the coconut market crashed two decades ago, a Brigham Young University engineering class proved this month that coconut oil could make a crucial comeback as a biodiesel fuel.

"The Tongan economy centered around exporting coconuts and coconut oil until the 1980s, when soybean oil drove coconut producers out of business," BYU student and Hyde Park native Allyson Frankman said. "Farmers and processors were devastated, and the economy has never really recovered, but the coconuts are still there — they litter the ground."

Tongans use diesel for cars, boats, the generators that provide electricity and the pumps that provide clean water to their homes. And diesel costs at least $4.20 a gallon there.

With vegetable oils being converted into biofuels all over the world, a Tongan family, the Haveas, approached BYU professor Randy Lewis about the possibility of using coconut oil.

At about the same time, Frankman and another chemical engineering student, Mapleton's Jacob Jones, decided to launch a BYU chapter of Engineers Without Borders.

"We wanted to see the College of Engineering and Technology more involved in humanitarian efforts," said Frankman, 25, who is seeking a Ph.D. "We're taught ideals of service and charity at BYU and have this technical skill, but we don't have opportunities to use that technical skill in service very often."

Frankman and Jones approached the faculty with an idea for a class. BYU created an engineering elective called "Global Projects in Engineering and Technology."

More than 30 students signed up and spent the winter semester studying coconuts and creating reactors that mix the oil with methanol and sodium hydroxide and convert it into clean-burning fuel.

The team used 10 coconuts to make a liter of diesel. Coconut oil is extracted from the meat, or copra, of the plant by grating, drying and pressing it.