Sorry I haven't updated this blog in a while, mainly because A Levels and car theory revision got in the way (I passed). So, I thought it was time to get back to things and start off with an interesting news story I read related to chemical engineering, at least I think so.
A French man, Mr Decker, has set up a way to use cheese to make electricity... Pretty cool. The process works by using the by-product of Beaufort cheese, otherwise known as 'whey', which is then put into a tank and fermented into biogas with the help of bacteria. The biogas contains methane and carbon dioxide. It's clever because the process seems to have reflected on an animals digestive system i.e. a cows digestive system, and thus the biogas is produced in a similar way as gas is produced in a cows stomach. The biogas is then heated which creates steam that then turns turbines which create the electricity. In fact, theres enough electricity created by the plant to power a town of 1,500 people for a year, now that's impressive!
I feel like this process, although quite comical, is important and definitely beneficial to society. I mean using the byproducts of anything is a great thing, it means you're using materials that would potentially just be waste, to create something or to power something. As someone who aspires to be an environmental engineer of sorts, I find this really fascinating and motivating to know that there are still things that we can use and develop so we can prolong our planets other resources. So... making electricity from cheese, I support it!
Main Sources Used:
[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/12060538/French-power-station-generates-electricity-from-cheese.html
[2] http://www.tcetoday.com/latest%20news/2015/december/powered-by-cheese.aspx#.VorKbJOyOkp
