The Glory of the Garden

The development of a new method of making biodiesel from sewage sludge could make the process economically feasible for biofuel production.

A team of researchers in South Korea have developed a new process for converting the lipids in sewage sludge into biodiesel, at not only a lower cost than conventional biodiesel, but with much higher yields. The team, working out of the Research Institute of Industrial Science and Technology, found that the sewage sludge produced 2,200 times more lipids per gram than soybeans, and at a much lower cost.