Chocolate powered vehicles will hit the streets and not only in your dreams
I think we’d all agree: The best place for chocolate is in our mouths. But second to that, it could be in our vehicles as a unique form of biofuel. If cars emitted less pollution from chocolate fuel sources, and carried a reserve of chocolaty goodness for personal consumption, being stranded on the highway could be a winner all around!
Realistically, the chocolate fuel sources that are being developed will not be something you’ll want to put in your mouth, but they are an interesting innovation. The role that chocolate plays in developing this unique biofuel is feeding E. coli bacteria to create hydrogen — a fuel source that’s both renewable and lower on the environmental impact scale than most other fuel types. While no one wants to hear that chocolate factories waste the delicious commodity, it happens. This fuel process makes use of that waste in a way that’s environmentally beneficial.
The exact process of turning chocolate into hydrogen is one that might temporarily turn your stomach at the next sight of chocolate. In the research process, the bacteria fermented the sugars in the chocolate, creating organic acids that caused the bacteria, due to toxicity, to begin converting formic acid to hydrogen.
While this research was conducted strictly in a laboratory environment in the U.K., another experiment took a chocolate powered vehicle to the streets. The specific process used to generate the fuel source was never released, beyond the basic information that it used a modified engine and a fuel that combined waste chocolate and vegetable oil. Designed to meet Formula 3 Racing standards, the vehicle was able to travel up to 125 mph around corners using a carrot steering wheel as part of a root vegetable and grain body and interior construction.
This is yet another example of how waste can play an important role in developing alternative energy sources. We can all admit, however, that the most disturbing thing about this is the waste of a food substance that’s cherished globally!
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Beth Hodgson also writes for Green Options, a community and network of blogs dedicated to sustainability.
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