Extracting Oil

NPDC helps project to enhance the value of nuisance eastern redcedar trees

Over the decades, the invasive eastern redcedar tree has taken over more and more land in Oklahoma. Much of the managed eastern redcedar is burned, turned into mulch or fashioned into posts, but researchers are still looking for any value-added products that can be made from it.

The Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry (ODAFF) and the New Product Development Center (NPDC) at OSU collaborated on a possible solution: to continuously extract oil from eastern redcedar.

“The NPDC aims to assist Oklahoma communities by providing value-added engineering and business services,” says Robert Taylor, NPDC director. “We employ a team of engineering and business professionals, coupled with undergraduate and graduate student interns, to identify and solve challenges that improve the economic, and sometimes societal, well-being of Oklahoma.”

Approximately 12.6 million acres in Oklahoma are considered forested. Eastern redcedar makes up 600,000 acres with an estimated total of 462 million trees. The annual control of eastern redcedar is a $15 million investment, with $7.5 million from landowners and $7.5 million from the USDA Environmental Quality Incentives Program.

“The goal of the project with the NPDC was to create a unique continuous extraction process that would make it more viable to get oil out of the eastern redcedar tree and still have byproducts available to produce energy from the remaining fiber,” says Jim Reese, Oklahoma secretary of agriculture. “We wanted to make an existing process more valuable and effective for Oklahoma.”

With support from ODAFF, NPDC design engineers developed a model for

BY ERIN LARSON

extracting oil from eastern redcedar. Terri Ventress, NPDC-Stillwater senior design engineer, analyzed an oil extraction process using redcedar shavings to produce a value-added product.

Ventress began the process by producing a batch experiment to test the temperature and residence times. She found that up to 2 percent of a cedar tree’s weight can be extracted for oil. The batch of cedar shavings was bathed in steam. From the steam, the oil rose to the surface and was collected. The process was adjusted by the dependent variables such as temperature profile and residence time. Each batch and test run provided a comparison of chemical analysis to improve the concept.

To complete the project, Ventress teamed with Tyler Worden, design engineer at NPDC-Tulsa. Worden provided mechanical engineering guidance, additional student support and the facilities for this project with his team of NPDC undergraduate interns.

“The facilities at the Helmerich Research Center at OSU-Tulsa offer diverse resources for the NPDC,” says Ventress. “With wet lab capabilities including reverse osmosis water, NPDC-Tulsa saw the opportunity to move forward with this project.”

Throughout the project, NPDC interns were heavily involved in the development and experimentation processes. Sean Freeman, a mechanical engineer senior at OSU-Tulsa, was instrumental in designing the support and holders for the project with a 3D printer, producing the exact size and shape specifications needed. Freeman says he has found value in working with projects that provide diverse skill development and design.

“Taking a conceptual idea and going through the hurdles provided me with software and mechanical experience,” he says. “I have a better feel for what working as a professional engineer will be like.”

For the eastern redcedar oil extraction project, Freeman and other NPDC interns analyzed and modified the speed, power and size of the process to determine the best result.

“Continuous learning is always the objective,” says Ventress, who has worked with many student interns and has seen vast improvement of their personal and technical skills. The students working on the oil extraction process, and other projects at the NPDC, are exposed to realworld challenges. Through client projects and design experimentation, each student gains hands-on learning experiences that go beyond the classroom.

“No student at the NPDC is a specialist in all areas of engineering,” says Worden. “As new clients come through, students become familiar with different processes and designs. They turn themselves into specialists with the help of our design engineers and the client, who are their mentors.”

The experience prepares students for future employment and exposes them to the professional engineering atmosphere.

“The student value behind the connection with the client and the project is fueled by their drive, interest and passion,” says Worden.

The eastern redcedar oil extraction project exemplifies how the NPDC can tackle challenges that affect Oklahoma, and it showcases the collaboration between ODAFF and the NPDC.

“The work performed at the NPDC was valuable and costeffective,” says Reese. “The intellectual investment adds to the future of the project. The next step is to refine the process to advance it further.”