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Biofuels

UEET 101 Emerging Technology Energy Engineering Unit. Biofuels. Presented By Pradip Majumdar Professor Department of Mechanical Engineering Northern Illinois University DeKalb, IL 60115. What is Biofuel?.

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Biofuels

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  1. UEET 101 Emerging Technology Energy Engineering Unit Biofuels Presented By Pradip Majumdar Professor Department of Mechanical Engineering Northern Illinois University DeKalb, IL 60115

  2. What is Biofuel? • Biofuels are solid, liquid, gas fuels derived from recently dead biological materials. • They are distinguished from the fossil fuels, which are formed from long dead biological materials over a long period of time. • Biofuels can be produced theoretically from any biological or organic carbon-source materials: - Most common being the photosynthetic plant - and other plant-derived materials such woodchips, trash etc. • They essentially recycle existing carbon in the atmosphere rather than releasing any new carbon from fossil fuels. - because plants used in the production of the fuel removed carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. • In theory they are endlessly renewable.

  3. Common Bio-fuel Production • There are two common strategies for bio-fuel production: 1. Grow crops high in starch (Corn and maize) or grow crops high in sugar (sugar cane, sugar beet and sweet sorgum) and then use yeast fermentation to produce Ethyl Alcoholor Ethanol. - The most common bio-fuels are in the form of ethanol.

  4. Grow plants that contain high amount of vegetable oil such as oil palm, soy bean, algae. - when these oils are heated, their viscosity is reduced and they can be burned directly in a diesel engine. or - they can be chemically processed to produce fuels such as biodiesel. • Wood and its byproducts can also be converted into biofuels such as wood gas, methanol and ethanol fuel.

  5. Problems with Ethanol-Biofuel • Currently, ethanol is produced primarily from food grade materials such as such corn and souya. • It uses a energy-intensive process that may not save a lot of fossil fuel. • Study shows that USA can not produce enough ethanol from corn to meet its demand. • Current rush to produce ethanol from food grade material lead to global food shortage and increased food price.

  6. Alternate Technology to Produce Ethanol New research is focused on to develop more efficient processes to make ethanol from wider range of non-food grade biomass. The key elements of a biomass is the cellulose that gives plant cells their strong walls. The process involves converting cellulose into sugar and then sugar into ethanol: Ethanol Cellulose Sugar

  7. Conversion Process • One of the recent effort is to turn any carbon-rich organic material into a gas and then into liquid fuel. • Potential source for this carbon-rich organic biomass - Pine tress - Wood Chips - Trash (Municipal solid waste - Farming residues (cornstalks) - timber residues (unusable parts of logged trees) • Challenge is to cheaply transport these leftovers to the ethanol plants. • How about leaves, small limbs, waste woods (forest leftovers)?

  8. Conversion Process Conventional Approach Gas Biomass Problem removing Nitrogen Nitrogen (If air is used) Oxygen (Expensive) or Air • Syngas is a mixture of mostly Carbon monoxide and hydrogen • Syngas is generally converted into liquid fuel ethanol by means of a catalyst (Range Fuels) • Newer approach involves no use of catalyst and but use bacteria to ferment the syngas into ethanol. New Approach (By Range Fuels and Coskata) Biomass Syngas Ethanol Steam

  9. The amount of ethanol produced in processes with chemical catalyst is around 70-80 gallons per ton. • Bacteria-based process may produce 100 gallon per ton - this process makes more ethanol rather than other products such as butanols, propanol, hexanol, octanol and other alcohols.

  10. Some Practical Issues Main challenge is to design a system that gives steady supply of ethanol from any biomass. Sorting out trash is a major huddle – practical issues - Plastic and bald tires are ideal use. Range Fuels system is currently designed for wood chips. - pretty uniform in size - no need for sorting process (taking out bad stuffs such as batteries) Use of garbage is quite challenging and may be risky for initial trials. - There may not be enough of it ( ???) - Municipal solid waste is less than 10 % of all the available biomass. - Is sorting process worthwhile?

  11. Prospects of Biofuels • Need to develop more efficient ethanol production process from non-food grade biomass. • Need to develop infrastructures for packaging and transporting biomass waste to ethanol plant in a economical manner. • Estimated current cost of ethanol is $2.10 per gallon. • Projected cost is $1.33 per gallon by 2012 with in- progress in technologies. • Can we reach $1.00 per gallon (Target) ? • Future for biofuel cars – May be!

  12. Some National and International Issues • Mitigation of carbon emission levels • Oil prices • Food vs. fuel • Deforestation and soil erosion • Impact on water resources • Energy balance and eficiency

  13. Energy Animations • Biomass Program EERE: Biomass Program Home Page EERE: Biomass Program Home Page • BP www.bp.com

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