Results of performance, emission and tribological evaluations of palm oil methyl ester and its blends with conventional diesel in an automobile diesel engine test bed are presented. Polymerization and carbon deposits on the fuel injector were monitored. CO, CO2, O2, combustion efficiency and temperature of exhaust gases were also measured. Palm oil methyl ester and its blends have great potential as alternative diesel fuel. Performance and exhaust gas emission for palm oil methyl ester and its blends with conventional diesel are comparable with those of conventional diesel fuel. Palm oil methyl ester does not pose a severe environmental problem and will not deteriorate engine and bearing components.

Dynamometer engine tests at steady-state conditions and a wear characteristics study were carried out on an indirect-injection diesel engine with palm oil diesel (POD) and its emulsions. The POD fuel was obtained in commercial form, and its emulsions were created by mixing POD fuel to contain 5 and 10% of water by volume. Variations in the engine's performance characteristics were determined from the results of steady-state tests carried out at fifteen selected torque-speed matrix points of the engine's performance map. The wear characteristics tests were performed by running the engine at half throttle setting for twenty hours for each fuel system. Then a desk-top comparison study was performed between the baseline fuel system of ordinary diesel (OD), POD, and its emulsions. Promising results have been obtained. Neither the lower cetane number of POD fuel nor its emulsification with water presented obstacles to the operation of the diesel engine during a series of steady-state engine tests and the twenty-hour endurance tests. Engine performance and fuel consumption for POD and its emulsions are comparable with those of OD fuel. Accumulations of wear metal debris in crank-case oil samples were lower with POD and its emulsions than with baseline OD fuel.JAOCS 72, 905-909 (1995).

Biofuels are expected to play a role in replacing crude oil as a liquid transportation fuel, and research into butanol has highlighted the importance of this alcohol as a fuel. Butanol has a higher energy density than ethanol, butanol-gasoline blends do not separate in the presence of water, and butanol is miscible with gasoline (Szulczyk, Int J Energy Environ 1(1):2876-2895, 40). Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been used as a fermentative organism in the biofuel industry producing ethanol from glucose derived from starchy plant material; however, it typically cannot tolerate butanol concentrations greater than 2 % (Luong, Biotechnol Bioeng 29 (2):242-248, 27). 90 Saccharomyces spp. strains were screened for tolerance to 1-butanol via a phenotypic microarray assay and we observed significant variation in response with the most tolerant strains (S. cerevisiae DBVPG1788, S. cerevisiae DBVPG6044 and S. cerevisiae YPS128) exhibiting tolerance to 4 % 1-butanol compared with S. uvarum and S. castelli strains, which were sensitive to 3 % 1-butanol. Response to butanol was confirmed using traditional yeast methodologies such as growth; it was observed that fermentations in the presence of butanol, when using strains with a tolerant background, were significantly faster. Assessing for genetic rationale for tolerance, it was observed that 1-butanol-tolerant strains, when compared with 1-butanol-sensitive strains, had an up-regulation of RPN4, a transcription factor which regulates proteasome genes. Analysing for the importance of RPN4, we observed that a Δrpn4 strain displayed a reduced rate of fermentation in the presence of 1-butanol when compared with the BY4741 background strain. This data will aid the development of breeding programmes to produce better strains for future bio-butanol production.