New research in the US could yield better biofuel from oilseed crops like safflower and waste material like orange peel.
Chemists at University of California, Davis have developed a new process than can increase the yield from oilseed crops like safflower by up to 24%.
Conventional processes extract plant oils and convert them into a form suitable for use in engines, leaving behind carbohydrates, the sugars, starches and cellulose that make up stems, leaves and seed husks of the plant.
The new process converts both the plant oils and the carbohydrates into biofuel in a single step. The resulting fuel, a mixture of fatty acid esters from the plant oils and levulinic acid esters from the carbohydrates, also performs better at lower temperatures than conventional biodiesel.
Although the new process could cost more than conventional production routes, that could be offset by improved yields and higher performance fuels, say the researchers.
Meanwhile, researchers from the University of Central Florida have developed a way of producing ethanol from waste products that is greener and less expensive than the current methods.
Henry Daniell’s process uses plant-derived enzymes to break down food waste, as well as non-food feedstock like sugarcane, switchgrass and straw, into sugar, which can be fermented to produce ethanol.
In Florida, for example, waste orange peel alone could produce about 200 million gallons of ethanol each year, says Daniell.
There is some way to go before the technique can be used on the commercial scale, but Daniell says that production processes like this could be the turning point for using biofuel “as the norm” in vehicles.
These research advances are part of a wider trend towards using cellulosic feedstock to produce biofuel.
The largest US producer of biofuel, Poet, is launching Project Liberty this year, a cellulosic ethanol plant in Iowa that will use corn cobs from local farms to produce 25 million gallons a year.
Abengoa Bioenergy, meanwhile, has plans for a $550 million commercial-scale hybrid cellulosic ethanol and power plant in Kansas, which will be the first such facility in the US.
The plant will use corn stover, wheat straw and switchgrass to produce 15 million gallons of ethanol a year, along with 75 MW of energy.
And finally, two demonstration plants have started operation to produce ethanol from other feedstocks like wood biomass, agricultural waste, sustainable energy crops and construction waste. Coskata’s semi-commercial facility is located in Pennsylvania, while DuPont Danisco Cellulosic Ethanol is operating the other plant in Tennessee in collaboration with University of Tennessee/Genera Energy.
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