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Production of

Production of. How can plant biomass become fuel?. Ethanol Biodiesel Burgeoning (expanding) Technologies DMF Butanol Fischer Tropsch. FUEL CHEMISTRIES.

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Production of

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  1. Production of

  2. How can plant biomass become fuel? • Ethanol • Biodiesel • Burgeoning (expanding) Technologies • DMF • Butanol • Fischer Tropsch

  3. FUEL CHEMISTRIES • Methane (CH4), the primary constituent of liquefied or compressed natural gas, and propane (C3H8), the primary constituent of liquified petroleum gas. • Petroleum fuels are blends of lots of different chemical species; in general, the molecules of a liquid petroleum fuel are pretty big and complex. Isooctane (C8H18), typically found in gasoline Cetane (C16H34), typical of diesel fuel

  4. Hydrocarbons when burning completely – combine with hydrogen from water and O2 in the air to form CO2. Incomplete combustion of carbon combines with one oxygen yielding CO (toxic) COMBUSTION

  5. Non-Hydrocarbon Fuels • METHANOL • ETHANOL • Oxygen promotes more complete combustion • Hydrogen

  6. Ethanol • Fermentation and distillation (nothing new) Ethanol evaporates cooler temps. allowing separation Add water Germination releases enzymes Yeast makes a low ethanol % liquid Enzymes release sugars Add yeast Feedstock harvest/storage Distillation Beer is 1000’s of years old

  7. Ethanol • Fermentation and distillation • Modern ethanol plants (use starch or cellulose) • Still combustion releases CO2 into the atmosphere Ethanol evaporates cooler than water allowing separation Yeast makes a low ethanol % liquid Enzymes release sugars Add yeast Add water Germination releases enzymes Feedstock harvest/storage All images from a virtual tour www.Ethanol.org

  8. Biodiesel • Rudolf Diesel and his engine and its fuel • Early diesels ran on vegetable oil • 1920 crude oil distillates • 1990 Gulf war, increased energy price • EU was converting canola to biodiesel • US farms had excess of soybean • Biodiesel from soybean continues to gain popularity

  9. Biodiesel • Biodiesel production needs to remove glycerol from fatty acids

  10. Biodiesel • Increasing biodiesel production capacity • 200 M gal sold in 2006 • 1.37B gal production capacity when online NBB 2005, 2007 Schmidt 2007

  11. Burgeoning Technologies - DMF • DiMethylFuran (DMF) synthesis from sugars • Higher energy density (40% greater than ethanol, making it comparable to gasoline) • Chemically stable • Evaporating DMF during production also requires ~ one third less energy than the evaporation of ethanol • Not soluble in water (does not absorb moisture ) • Higher boiling point than ethanol (92 oC, compared to 78 oC for ethanol) • Has the ability to efficiently and rapidly be produced from simple sugars which are readily available in nature • Safety issues must be examined Roman-Leshkov 2007

  12. Burgeoning Technologies - Butanol • Butanol • alcohol with 4 carbon atoms compared to ethanol’s 2 • stores more energy per L than ethanol • less corrosive than ethanol to pipelines • easily separated from water • can be blended into gasoline at higher concentrations • Like Ethanol its fermented • Clostridium acetobutylicum www.lightparty.com

  13. Burgeoning Technologies – Fischer Tropsch Process • a collection of chemical reactions that converts a mixture of CO and H into liquid hydrocarbons • produces synthetic lubrication oil and synthetic fuel, typically from coal, natural gas, or biomass

  14. Change efficiency of any step in process More crop yield More oil/sugar Enzyme supplements Better microbes Better chemical engineering How can we change plants to get more fuel?

  15. Oil crops already exist US soybeans biggest oil crop EU canola 44% of cars run on diesel Canola yield 40% oil vs. 20% for soybean Crop yields can be increased with both traditional breeding and transgenic resistance traits More Oil 100 years of breeding -Changing oil

  16. Access to carbon can be done with simple gene effects It is possible to knock out a gene in this pathway and shift carbon away from starch More Sugar Sh2 knock out Normal field corn http://www.hort.purdue.edu

  17. Enzyme Supplements

  18. Engineered microorganisms can break down sugars from biomass and convert them into biofuels such as alcohols, diesels, or jet fuels However, a major challenge in microbial biofuel production is that biofuels are often toxic to cells Better Microbes

  19. Future Directions • Alternates to corn, soybean • Non-food • Low input • Grow on marginal land • Biomass rich (fast growing)

  20. Tilman’s group developed a scenario that is carbon negative The plants fix CO2 and store C in the roots. The shoot biomass is harvested for biofuel The planting is diverse and provides 16 crops Basically a low input scenario Neither ethanol or biodiesel are carbon negative We Need Carbon Neutral Options

  21. There is 1.3 Billion tons (BT) of non-food biomass out there (per year) It is possible to get 100gal/ton of biomass If can access and ferment all 1.3 BT biomass, can create 130B gal U.S. used 5.4B gallons ofethanol in 2006 (www.energyfuturecoalition.org) Fuel of the future? Cellulosic Ethanol Somerville 2006

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