Create liquid fuels out of biomass products like wood waste and sawdust. Prove that this biofuels production technology can be performed on a larger scale than just the lab bench. And then show that the process is cheaper than coaxing ethanol from crops like corn.
Those are the goals behind a three-year, $3.2 million research project funded by the U.S. Dept. of Energy that combines the efforts of North Carolina State University, RTI International and the University of Utah. The project — one of the first tangible outcomes of the newly formed Research Triangle Energy Consortium — combines the talents of Drs. Hasan Jameel and Steve Kelley from NCSU's Department of Wood and Paper Science and Drs. Henry Lamb and Steve Peretti from NCSU's Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.
One of the primary difficulties with creating biofuels from wood products is the glue-like substance called lignin found in wood. Peretti says that lignin is not a sugar, so fermentation methods — like those used in creating ethanol from corn, for example — don't work.
Even though it's harder to work with, Peretti likes lignin, calling it a "higher-energy feedstock almost like crude oil" that is lower in oxygen. Less oxygen, he says, translates to higher energy value per gallon.
"Demonstrating that a gasification process can be used to convert any biomass component — sugars, lignin, bark and different process residues — in any combination into liquid fuels is a major goal of the project," Kelley says.
Unlike the common methods used to ferment sugars into ethanol, gasification processes can use almost any biomass feedstock, circumventing the issues with decay of stored biomass.