Patent pending — Two West High students invent new way of making fuel

SALT LAKE CITY — A couple of Salt Lake City students have gone a bit beyond the usual requirements for high school. In fact, they're way past "extra credit."

West High School students David Larkin and Andy Law have apparently invented a new way of making fuel, and they've applied for a patent.

It's the kind of success story that would make many former students feel inadequate about their own high school careers. If the patent comes through and the process pans out, the two seniors may have a real moneymaker and a solid contribution to the world's energy needs.

The process starts at the Dragon Diner, a Chinese restaurant in Holladay owned by Law's father. He's donating leftover cooking oil to the students' research efforts.

"Used vegetable oil is cheaper than new vegetable oil," Andy Law said. "So it'll make your biodiesel cheaper."

Larkin and Law are making biodiesel fuel by mixing the used cooking oil with methanol, and with a chemical called potassium hydroxide. There's nothing new in that — it's a common approach to making biofuels.

But working with biotechnology teacher Colby Wilson, the two students came up with a different way of getting all the ingredients to mix and react.

"What we wanted to do was make it cheaper," Larkin said, "and to use a lot less energy."

Instead of using heat energy to cook the ingredients, they force the mixture through a tiny tube at room temperature. The tube's inside diameter is less than the thickness of a human hair.

"Since the tube is so small in diameter," Larkin said, "it causes the particles basically to collide and react. So it's basically catalyzing the reaction through that small tube, without heat."

"If you use a lot of biodiesel on a large scale," Law said, "that would save you quite a bit of money."

The students also came up with a new way to extract waste glycerol from the fuel much more quickly than when done with conventional processes.

When his two students took their idea on the road to science fairs, Wilson said, they kept hearing a certain question. "The international judges were asking whether or not they had filed a patent yet and whether they were going to if they had not," Wilson said, an indication the judges really believed in the project's viability.

Larkin and Law have even figured out how to pack their biofuel set-up into a Tupperware box with a lid that doubles as a solar panel. It's perfect for whipping up a batch of diesel fuel in a Third World country, where there may be limited access to electricity.

They've started a company to market the package. Larkin and Law are co-owners of Bio-Me Innovations LLC.

When their biofuel is poured into a diesel engine, it works just fine but the exhaust has a distinctive aroma.

"Yeah, it does," Law said. "It does smell like Chinese food — Chinese wontons."

Email: hollenhorst@desnews.com