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not stout
This Young Scientist project is turning algae into pints of the black stuff (crude oil, that is)
Greg Tarr has developed a more efficient method of making biofuel.
THE NUMBER OF projects relating to climate change and renewables at this year’s BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition shows they are key issues for teenagers.
One attracting interest – partly thanks to it’s clever branding, alluding to pints of the ‘black stuff’ – targets the efficiency of a decades-old method of producing biofuel, but one which has gained interest in recent years.
Greg Tarr from Brandon Grammar School, Cork, built a reactor to convert algae into a relatively clean form of crude oil. However, his reactor has one crucial difference – it agitates the mixture using ultrasonic waves, giving it a higher yield than normal.
Watch the video above for more.
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