Algae growing in a lab setting...
Algae growing in a lab setting to be turned into biodiesel.
What is Bio-Oil?Short Answer: It's the "other" diesel
Long Answer:Bio-oil is the fuel equivalent of the girl next door you know pretty well, but just overlooked. Bio-oils are found in your kitchen cupboard, and cook your french fries. Bio-oils can be your perfect mate if you just get past their one, bad, personal flaw. Bio-oils are too sweet-full of sugar or glycerin to be more exact. It's not all bad since this byproduct is used for making soap or dynamite, whichever you might need more of. Bio-oils are everywhere and are found in soybeans, canola, sunflowers, hemp, coconuts, rapeseeds, used cooking oil, algae, beef tallow, pork lard, mustard seeds, corn, palms, cottonseeds, whales, and the list goes on and on. One could turn their body into bio-oils if they requested it in their will (the amount of energy varies from person to person). Bio-oils and diesel engines have been together since the very beginning. Peanut oil was the choice of Rudolph Diesel, winning out over petroleum oil's cousin coal dust. The best news is that these bio-oils can be refined and made into biodiesel.
What is the difference between petroleum oil and bio-oil?Short answer: Time
Long Answer:Petroleum oil (also known as mineral oil) has been dead longer than bio-oil. Whereas it takes millions of years for nature to refine organic matter (plants and critters) into petroleum, bio-oils (also known as fatty acid methyl esters or FAME) turn into usable fuel as fast as a person can refine the raw product. The difference between petroleum and bio-oil is how long the base stock has been dead.
For a more technical answer, one could look at both bio-oil's and regular diesel's chemical formula. Bio-oils have huge carbon chains, and each ester is different. For example, Palmitic is C15H31CO2CH3, Stearic is C17H33CO2CH3, and Linoleic is CH3(CH2)4CH=CHCH2CH=CH(CH2)7. On the other hand, mineral diesel is rather simple-C12H23 with only a few variations.
When and where was bio-oil born?Short Answer: Ancient origins across the globe
Long Answer:Bio-oil has lived a long life. Ancient Eskimos first used it. Their culture was based around the whale and every part was used, including the whale's oil. Applications included cosmetics, medicine, heating, cooking, and lighting. The Aztecs used sunflower oil. The Manchu of northern Asia utilized soybean oil primarily for greasing wagon wheels as they creaked along ancient trade routes of the Steppe. They believed plants with one part were male because they produced alcohol. Plants with two parts were female and produced oil. Both the ancient and modern Greeks worship olive oil. At the beginning of the 19th century, Europeans and Americans hunted the whale to near extinction. Herman Melville's book, Moby Dick, gave the world a fictional account of this time period. People were chasing bio-oils (the great White Whale) then, just as today they chase "the great black whale (oil)." Fortunately for the whales, in 1870 Standard Oil was formed, killing the bio-oil industry. Since petroleum oil was plentiful and easy to get, it remains the oil of choice to this day.
How do you make biodiesel from bio-oils?Short answer: The old inefficient way or the new improved way
 1851 Herman Melville publishes...  1851
Herman Melville publishes Moby Dick and the whaling industry continues to thrive. |  1870 Standard Oil is created...  1870
Standard Oil is created and the bell tolls for the whaling industry. |  1887 Karl Benz and Gottlieb...  1887
Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler invent the automobile. |
 1893 Rudolf Diesel creates...  1893
Rudolf Diesel creates the diesel engine that is powered by peanut oil. | | |
1942
Transesterification or alcoholysis (the refining of bio-oils) is invented during the petroleum shortages of WWII.
1960s-today
Hobbyists produce biodiesel.
1980
Yusuf Chisti thinks of using microalgae as a fuel.
Summer 2006
Krohn sparks the Mcgyan process.