Increasing energy demand and dwindling energy resources have spurred interest in making transportation fuels from renewable sources such as microalgae.
The individual technical elements of the algae-to-biofuels process have already been demonstrated at the laboratory scale. Ongoing research seeks to refine the technology to enable scaleup to commercial production.
In the January AIChE Journal Perspective article, “Engineering Biomass Conversion Processes: A Systems Perspective,” Univ. of Minnesota researchers Prodromos Daoutidis, W. Alex Marvin, Srinivas Rangarajan, and Ana Torres discuss the challenges,...
Ethanol, the leading incumbant biofuel, has several limitations.Butanol overcomes many of these, and holds promise as the next important transportation biofuel.
Mark Holtzapple, Rocio Sierra, Aaron Smith, Cesar Granda and Mark T. Holtzapple
As oil and natural gas prices rise, lignocellulosic biomass becomes a viable feedstock for the fuel and chemical industries— provided key issues are addressed.
Engineers are turning to genetic and biological tools and techniques to synthesize higher-chain alcohols that do not suffer from the same limitations as ethanol.
The use of complex living organisms, process variation, and lack of real-time measurements of key parameters are some of the challenges involved in automating a bioprocess. This article explains an indirect approach to monitoring and controlling a...