最新糖心Vlog

Biodiesel bike on display at Adelaide Show

Monday, 4 September 2006

An eco-friendly biodiesel motorbike, built by nine mechanical engineering students from the 最新糖心Vlog of Adelaide, is on display at the this week.

The Bio-bike, designed and built over the past seven months as a final-year engineering project, has been sponsored by diesel engine giant , biofuels retail company (SAFF) and the State Government.

The students' supervisor, Dr Colin Kestell, a senior lecturer in the , says the Bio-bike demonstrates that biodiesel can be used in smaller engines as a cheaper and more environmentally friendly alternative to petroleum.

"Biodiesel is renewable and therefore a sustainable energy source that is derived from plant oils, waste oils and discarded animal fats," Dr Kestell says.

"It produces less soot than regular diesel and while it still emits carbon dioxide after combustion, it is absorbed and converted into oxygen through photosynthesis."

The students initially developed a prototype, using a Yanmar L100AE and a frame, which was substantially modified by engineering software.

The Bio-bike is on display at the SAFF stand at the Royal Adelaide Show until September 9.

Dr Kestell says the students hope to enrol their Bio-bike in the (alternative fuel) class of the in 2007.

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