ISU BioBus hopes to be able to start production this semester after receiving two grants from the College of Business and from the Pappajohn Center for Entrepreneurship.

The organization also got a space from the chemistry department and will begin work in a laboratory in Gilman Hall.

The organization is an interdisciplinary student initiative that wants to recycle waste grease from ISU Dining into diesel fuel for the CyRide buses.

“We started thinking about this project almost two years ago,” said David Correll, graduate student in business administration and president of ISU BioBus. “We’ve been working on it slowly ever since.”

Correll said that the next steps are to spend the money to buy the equipment needed and to start production.

“That’s just really on the technical level,” Correll said. “Another big part of our mission is educational outreach about renewable fuels and alternative energy.”

There are two main goals for the project: to recycle the waste grease on campus, make biodiesel and help close the energy loop here on campus; and to have educational experiences for people in renewable fuels and share information on alternative fuels with the community, Correll said.

“We would like to start production this semester; in all honesty, we’re a little behind,” Correll said. “We wanted to start production this summer, but everything took us longer then we thought. We were pretty ambitious on our timetable.”

“I am waiting to be contacted by students that they are ready to use our oil,” said Nancy Levandowski, director of ISU Dining.

The organization is hoping to make its formal presentation to the university about the systems it’s going to build in November. Then members plan to order the equipment and to receive it in late November or early December.

Once production is started, it looks like the organization will be working with 40 gallons of oil waste per week, perhaps a little less when it starts, Correll said.

“CyRide and ISU Dining have been very helpful,” Correll said.

Iowa State will be one of two universities in the nation that recycles its grease waste into biodiesel fuel to power its campus buses. The other is the University of Colorado at Boulder.

“We would be sort-of leaders,” Correll said. “But since we’re leaders, there’s not a lot of data out there we’ve seen, but hopefully we’ll have that data in the launch party in December.”

ISU BioBus is divided into three divisions: marketing and outreach, business and administrative and engineering and technical.

“In each team there’s a student leader who has some sort of experience or knowledge on the issues,” Correll said.

Bernardo del Campo, graduate student in agricultural and biosystems engineering, is a founding member and currently the vice president of the BioBus organization. Del Campo is head of the engineering and technical division.

“There is a lot of work coming very soon, as we are in the process of buying and consequently installing the process unit,” del Campo said. “[We’ll] make it run and meet the standard quality of biodiesel.”

In addition to leading, there is a considerable amount of paperwork, safety and regulations needed to produce biodiesel, del Campo said.

“I think that applying concepts that you have seen is extremely important,” del Campo said. “I certainly enjoy constructing and assembling things, working with students, teaming up and supporting this kind of activities that hopefully will engage more students into these kinds of green projects.”

Lauren Johnsen, freshman in English, joined ISU BioBus at the beginning of the semester. Johnsen, a member of the outreach committee for the organization, is trying to get the word out to students as well as recruit new members.

The outreach committee is planning on hosting various events throughout the year to educate students on the issue. The biggest thing the communications team is doing is informing the public of our presence and our initiative, Johnsen said.

“I feel like I am part of something important,” Johnsen said. “Even though we are just creating biodiesel for one campus, I still feel like we are making an impact and are proving that a small group of people can truly make a difference.”

“The BioBus organization has taken the initiative to develop the relationships that are necessary to make this project succeed,” said faculty adviser Thomas Brumm, associate professor of agriculture and biosystems engineering. “They have arranged meetings with ISU Dining and CyRide, as well as secured a facility to make the biodiesel.”

“They deserve all the credit for what they accomplish,” Brumm said. “I make sure that they’re on track and provide resources when needed.”

The BioBus organization has contacted and been working with CyRide in order to test its biodiesel fuel on the CyRide buses.

“We gave them one of our older buses to run the biodiesel,” said Assistant Transit Director Rich Leners. “The bus will run on 20 percent biodiesel — the other 80 percent would be diesel.”

The BioBus organization is hoping to have its first launch party in December.