Talk Planned for National Mole Day

The Chemistry program at Fairmont State University and the North Central West Virginia Section of the American Chemical Society are co-sponsoring a talk at FSU on Tuesday, Oct. 23. The talk is in honor of National Mole Day (a celebration of Avogadro's number, 6.022 x 10^23 things per mole, which occurs on 10/23 each year.)

Brian Anderson, Chemical Engineering Department, West Virginia University, will present the talk titled "Biodiesel and Beyond: An examination of our dependence on liquid fuels and our options" at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 23, in Room 212 of Hunt-Haught Hall. Light refreshments will be served at 6:30 p.m.
The following information is from the abstract for Anderson's lecture:
"As we proceed into the 21st century, as energy, fuels, and carbon dioxide are quickly moving to the forefront of concerns for the future, we realize that perhaps the single-most influential invention of the 19th century was the Otto Cycle Engine, invented by Nicolas Otto in 1876. It was this four-stroke engine that was universally adopted as the basis for liquid-fueled internal combustion.

For more than a century, petroleum has been a plentiful resource fueling our cars, trucks, and our economy. However, as we enter the fourth decade since the peak of U.S. oil production the need is upon us to find alternatives for petroleum. We will examine the current status of primary energy consumption in the United States, particularly within the transportation sector, influences of potential alternative scenarios, and discuss biodiesel as a case study. Biodiesel is a biologically-derived liquid fuel with properties similar to those of petroleum diesel. It is typically produced by a transesterification process that converts triglyceride molecules found in vegetable oils into fatty acid methyl esters.

We will cover the basics of biodiesel chemistry, biodiesel production, properties, and impacts as a combustion fuel. Finally, will describe the WVU Biodiesel Project, a student initiative to produce biodiesel for transportation fuel on the West Virginia University Morgantown Campus."