Biofuels (Energy)

A key hurdle in realizing commercial-scale production of biodiesel from cultured algae is efficient harvesting/dewatering of algal cells. In order to produce a gallon of biodiesel from algae, thousands of gallons of water must be processed, even when algal biomass is grown in relatively...

Pyrolysis Vapors Upgrading using Metal Oxides Ayman M. Karim 1 , Donghai Mei 1 , Vanessa Lebarbier 1 , Changjun Liu 1,2 and Yong Wang 1,2 1 Pacific Northwest National Laboratory 2 Washington State University The vapors generated during fast pyrolysis of biomass contain a significant fraction of...

Economic biochemical conversion of cellulose to sugars necessitates minimal addition of water to biomass slurries during conversion, resulting in high-solids systems. The resulting slurries are effectively wet-granular materials. These materials presents difficulties for reactor engineering, as...

Biodiesel is a renewable, carbon-neutral fuel that can ease pressure on the world’s dwindling supply of oil and petroleum diesel. This research explores production of biodiesel from alternative low-value feedstocks such as waste oils. Traditional biodiesel reactions mix an alcohol and a refined...

In the current ecological climate there is a strong push to find a renewable energy resource to reduce the usage of fossil fuels which are depleting and are causing greenhouse gas emissions. Biorenewable materials, particularly lignocellulosic biomass, have received increased attention recently as...

Preparation of Mesoporous Silica-supported Palladium Catalyst for Biofuel Upgrade Ling Fei, Joshua Hill, Qianglu Lin, Yun Xu, Shuguang Deng, Hongmei Luo Department of Chemical Engineering, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003 A large number of reactions in organic chemistry (such as...

An efficient and sustainable energy crop production system is essential for the success of the emerging biorefinery industry. However, there is currently a significant lack of understanding regarding the development and dynamics of the biomass feedstock market upstream of the biorefinery, which is...

There are two major problems in current cellulosic ethanol production process: low ethanol productivity and high enzyme loading. Based on the current Separate Hydrolysis and Fermentation (SHF) process, it takes at least 96h to perform enzymatic hydrolysis to convert AFEX-CS to fermentable sugars at...

As cost associated with fossil fuels rise due to various environmental, social, and economic factors, it has become prudent to examine the possibility of exploiting alternative sources of raw materials for the production of energy and chemicals. Biomass, of various forms, has been proposed as an...

Furfural is an important chemical and also a building block for production of drop-in hydrocarbon fuels and can be produced from cellulosic biomass such as woody crops and bagasse by hydrolysis and dehydration with mineral acids. However, furfural yields employing current technologies are limited...