Research Plan

• Rationale
• In a busy urban city such as Philadelphia, there is a need for transportation; in the whole of the world, there is a need for renewable energy. On the sidelines, invasive plants overrun native ones, with new laws being made to curb new plantings. While making a biofuel from the invasive plants to knock out two issues with one solution, I will be investigating whether the pollution of the urban lifestyle will taint the plants too much to use in fuel.
• Hypothesis
• Research suggests that the plants picked for this experiment will absorb metals, making the probability for metal contaminants to be present in ethanol to be high.
• Research Question(s)
• Will there be any serious heavy metals in the plants?
• Will the contaminants interact strangely with the heavy metals?
• How will any contaminants change the reactions during different steps of the processes?
• Will I succeed at making ethanol, or will it just be moonshine?
• Engineering Goal(s)
• To determine whether urban grown plants are usable in biofuel, or whether they’re too polluted to be safely utilized.
• Expected Outcomes
• Likely to botch at least one batch of ethanol, which brings the necessity of a pilot experiment.
• Potential for unpredicted chemical interactions if metal contaminants are included in reactions.
• Plants are likely to be difficult to cultivate indoors, so surveillance will be a necessity to prevent plants from dying.
• Bibliography
• Littlewood J, Wang L, Turnbull C, Murphy RJ: Techno-economic potential of bioethanol from bamboo in China. Biotechnol Biofuels 2013, 6:173.
• Vaičekonytė, R., Kiviat, E., Nsenga, F. & Ostfeld, A. (2014) An exploration of common reed (Phragmites australis) bioenergy potential in North America. Mires and Peat, 13(12), 1–9.
• Yi Zheng, Zhongli Pan, Ruihong Zhang. Overview of biomass pretreatment for cellulosic ethanol production. Int J Agric & Biol Eng, 2009; 2(3): 51
• Onuki S, Koziel K A, van Leeuwen J, et al. Ethanol production, purification, and análisis techniques: a review. ASABE, paper No. 085136, Providence, RI. 2008.
• Al-mhanna, Najah, & Holger Huebner. "Quantification of Full Range Ethanol Concentrations by using pH Sensor."International Journal of Chemistry [Online], 3.1 (2011): p47. Web. 3 Nov. 2015
• Li, Zhiqiang, Zehui Jiang, Benhua Fei, Xing'e Liu, & Yan Yu. "BIOCONVERSION OF BAMBOO TO BIOETHANOL USING THE TWO-STAGE ORGANOSOLV AND ALKALI PRETREATMENT." BioResources [Online], 7.4 (2012): 5691-5699. Web. 8 Nov. 2015