Converting Waste into Energy
The Searle Biodiesel Program focuses on production, research, and outreach efforts centered on utilizing waste products to create energy. Our products are designed to utilize university and lab waste to make usable products with the long term goal of establishing a Zero Waste Process.
|Biodiesel Production||Biodiesel Calculator|
|Oil Collection||Biodiesel Lesson Plans|
|Products for Sale||Student Opportunities|
Our student-run enterprise is the first and only school operation licensed to sell biodiesel in the United States, and is a certified green business with the Illinois Green Business Association.
In the fall of 2007, the first Solutions to Environmental Problems (STEP): Biodiesel class started to explore biodiesel production on Loyola's Lakeshore Campus. This interdisciplinary research program offers courses that bring together students, faculty, staff, and community mentors to engage in interdisciplinary discussion and action around issues of environmental sustainability.
The Searle Biodiesel Lab is run by student interns. These students oversee the production and sale of:
We hope that this program can serve as a model for the rest of the university and general public. We seek to reduce the goods brought onto campus and the waste leaving campus by more efficiently using what we already have.