Biofuels technology development continues even as ethanol production matured. New “biorefineries” are being commissioned and the U.S. government continues to support development of new technologies and areas to improve overall biofuel production. More conventional biorefineries utilize gasification to convert bioderived feedstocks to fuel. Currently under development are a variety of direct replacement biofuels production technologies that do not gasify biomass.
Evaluating the economics and carbon dioxide lifecycle of “biorefineries” is essential to determine the viability of technologies for the future production of fuels from bioderived feedstocks. Since gasification is an energy-intensive process, it may not be the most economically advantageous biofuel production process. Another process that can convert bioderived feedstocks to a blending fuel is fast pyrolysis, which has many commercial analogs operating throughout the world. With advances in equipment development, fast pyrolysis can be used to directly convert bioderived feedstocks to finished direct replacement biofuels.
Identifying process technology advancements that allow for a wider range of biofeedstocks are considered, in addition to thermochemical conversion technologies and existing patents and work in this area.
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