IH2 technology has the capability to produce gasoline at a cost of less than $2.00 per gallon, Linck said.
A new process for converting municipal waste, algae, corn stalks and similar material to gasoline, diesel and jet fuel is showing the same promise in larger plants as it did in laboratory-scale devices, the developers reported here today. It was part of the 244th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world’s largest scientific society, which continues through Thursday.
“These results are essential in establishing the credibility of a process that may seem too good to be within the realm of possibility,” said Martin Linck, Ph.D. “However, we are moving steadily toward having multiple demonstration-scale facilities in operation by 2014, with each facility producing a range of 3,500-17,500 gallons of fuel a day from non-food plant material. We will be designing commercial-scale facilities that could produce as much as 300,000 gallons per day from the same kinds of feedstocks.”
The technology, termed Integrated Hydropyrolysis and Hydroconversion (IH2), already has the credibility of its developer, the Gas Technology Institute (GTI), where Linck is a scientist. Located in Des Plaines, Ill, GTI is a nonprofit energy technology research organization whose accomplishments during the last 70 years include nearly 500 products, 750 licenses and more than 1,200 associated patents.
IH2 technology involves use of internally generated hydrogen and a series of proprietary catalysts, which jump-start chemical reactions that otherwise would happen slowly or not at all. The process uses as its raw material, or “feedstock,” virtually any kind of nonfood biomass material — including wood, cornstalks and cobs, algae, aquatic plants and municipal solid waste ? and produces gasoline, jet fuel or diesel fuel.
Linck said it differs from other biofuel technologies in producing a finished, ready-to-use liquid hydrocarbon fuel, rather than crude intermediate substances or substances that contain unwanted oxygen, which must be further processed and upgraded to meet specifications for transportation fuels. He cited other advantages of the IH2 technology, including flexibility to use a broad range of feedstocks and mixtures of feedstocks from different sources; the use of existing technology and equipment, which keeps its cost low; and production of 90 percent less greenhouse gas per gallon than fossil fuels. CO2 is the major greenhouse gas in this case. The process does not require external hydrogen gas since it produces its own directly from the biomass feed ? a key advantage because most hydrogen gas today is made from natural gas or coal.
Based on assessments by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., IH2 technology has the capability to produce gasoline at a cost of less than $2.00 per gallon, Linck said.
via American Chemical Society
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