Jojoba Fuel
by Christine Lepisto, Berlin on 03.27.05
Jojoba (pronounced ho-HO-baa) is a desert plant which has been cultivated for decades in southwest America and Northwest Mexico, throughout South America, and in the Middle East. Usually jojoba oil winds up in shampoo or cosmetics or is used as an industrial lubricant. But Mohamed Selim and his colleagues at the United Arab Emirates University and the Helwan University report in the journal Renewable Energy, vol. 28 that jojoba oil can fuel your car—in fact more quietly, with fewer emissions and with less corrosion to your engine than diesel.
Mr. Selim's team modified natural jojoba oil with a little methanol and catalyst to form a methyl ester, which is a typical processing procedure for manufacturing biodiesel. They tested this fuel at engine speeds of 1000 to 2000 revolutions per minute and found that it produced better power and torque performance than diesel. The fuel has all the advantages which are typical of "neat biodiesel" (biodiesel which is not blended with petroleum). It is completely sulfur free so it produces no sulfur oxides and is less corrosive to engine parts. It also has a lower carbon ratio, so carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and particulate emissions are also lower. Also, the properties of the jojoba fuel make it safer for transport and handling, and also reduce the engine noise. Mr. Selim suggests this is because the combustion gases expanded more slowly, taking slightly longer to reach maximum pressure in the cylinder.
You've probably already figured out the down side on this one: it is unlikely that enough jojoba plants can be grown to meet the world's demand. But it is an attractive regional solution. Jojoba can be grown in saline soils and even deserts, which favors growing the large quantities of the shrubs necessary. Farmers in Egypt have started growing jojoba specifically to use the nut oil as fuel. [by ©C. Lepisto, 2005]
I thought I'd seen abandoned jojoba fields out there in the California desert ... found a article based on the "abandoned" keyword:
"Jojoba, a scrubby, grey-coloured perennial bush is a native of Arizona and New Mexico. Native Americans of the region have long known the unique properties of its wax. It’s a replacement for sperm whale oil and has a similar chemical structure to sebum (skin’s own moisturiser). However, attempts to commercialise this crop have not been so successful. In fact, it has a reputation as a ‘shonky crop’ as many plantations were established as ‘taxed-based, get rich quick’ agricultural investments and failed miserably in the 1970s and 1980s. Both California and Arizona have thousands of hectares of abandoned jojoba.
However, approximately 4,000 hectares of Jojoba are still grown in Arizona, irrigated from wells (bores) as deep as 300m and as hot as 38oC. Improved, clonal varieties were developed and better agronomy practised. The sun ripened seed falls to the ground after summer and is either brushed up into hoppers by modified almond harvesters or vacuumed into bins by homemade harvesters. Either drip irrigation or furrow irrigation is used. Growers in Arizona seem to have a competitive go-it-alone attitude to marketing. Efforts at collective marketing have failed; a salient lesson for the Australian jojoba industry. Some large growers, such as Purcell Jojoba, independently clean, crush, value-add and market jojoba. Others simply sell cleaned seed without value-adding the product. The price has been historically volatile and new crops from Argentina pose a competitive threat. Yet a resilient few growers continue to cultivate jojoba in these harsh desert conditions."
http://www.nuffield.com.au/fieldnews/2004/04sep04_TH.html
(I suspect it is too much to expect marginal land, beyond marginal land, to support good yield.)
Hello My dear Friends
we are so happy to see this wonderful message thro this web site on JOJOBA.infact i have tried from 1978 from India but due to non-support from Banking institutes i could not but now we plant JOJOBA in our ares from this year onweards
Jojoba and jatropha will solve worlds oil crisis to some extend...
S.A,Alagarsamy
India
www.mgrbiodiesel.com