Sweet potato, cassava
as biofuel source?

WHO doesn’t crave for sweet and delicious camote cue?

In the Philippines, Filipinos make lots of filling snacks out of sweet potato and cassava. These popular root crops are easy to grow and harvest, and has been part of the Filipino diet for centuries.

Ginataan, a favorite snack, is incomplete without sweet potato.

Cassava, more commonly known as kamoteng kahoy or balinghoy are baked to make cassava cake or suman.

Sweetened with sugar, sweet potato and cassava make delicious desserts.

But do you know sweet potatoes and cassava have more important uses?

A Filipino scientist said sweet potato and cassava can also be a source of renewable energy.

Dr. Vivencio Mamaril, executive assistant of the National Seed Inspection Committee and a member of the Bureau of Plant and Industry – Biotech Core Team said sweet potato and cassava can be developed into biofuel, a viable solution to the ever increasing cost of petroleum gas.

"We have 2.4 million hectares planted to corn, 3.2 million hectares to coconut, 390,000 hectares to sugarcane, 330,000 to cassava and camote," and "if we don’t have oil to drill, then we must grow oil from our soil. The lambanog that causes drunk driving can also run cars. Cassava is best not just as pie but petrol. And corn that can be made into healthy breakfast can also fuel our cars," Mamaril said.

Biofuel as defined is a fuel derived from living things or their metabolic byproducts. Biofuel is a renewable energy source not like other sources like petroleum, coal, and those sources from nuclear energy, he said.

There are also some other sources of biofuel and these are plant crops like corn, soybeans, sugarcane, palm and coconut oil. These crops produce oils and sugar.

"The potential therefore of growing fuel rather than drilling is true," he said.

Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) has an ongoing research on the use of coco diesel. Likewise, sugarcane, is the best known source of sugar for alcohol production.

There are other sources like tuba-tuba (Jatropha curcus), hanga (Pittosporum resineferum) that are known to produce oils.

Mamaril said root crops are rich in carbohydrates which can be broken down into alcohol through the process of fermentation.

Sweet potato and cassava have qualities that can be used as reference for calculating the amount of sugar and alcohol that can be derived if such varieties are to be used as other sources of biofuels, he said.

Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) locally known as camote belongs to family Convulvulaceae.

The plant is a herbaceous vine and it produces starchy and sweet tuberous roots. The roots are large, long, and tapered with color ranges of white, yellow, orange, brown and purple, although some varieties may produce other root colors. The young leaves of the vine plants are eaten as green salad.