Boosting biofuel efficiency

Purdue University chemical engineers claim an environmentally friendly process for producing liquid fuels from biomass could provide all of the fuel needed for the entire US transportation sector.

The new approach modifies conventional methods for producing liquid fuels from biomass by adding hydrogen from a ‘carbon-free’ energy source, such as solar or nuclear power, during the gasification step. This suppresses the formation of carbon dioxide and increases the efficiency of the process, making it possible to produce three times the volume of biofuels from the same quantity of biomass, said Rakesh Agrawal, Professor of Chemical Engineering at Purdue.

The researchers are calling their approach a ‘hybrid hydrogen-carbon process,’ or H2CAR.

‘Further research is needed to make this a large-scale reality,’ Agrawal said. ‘We could use H2CAR to provide a sustainable fuel supply to meet the needs of the entire US transportation sector - all cars, trucks, trains and aeroplanes.’