BioFuels Technology
Biofuels are becoming an integral part of modern "green"
technology. Non-petroleum derived transportation fuels are expected to help us
reduce our appetite for imported oil. The presentations in this session describe
how these technologies are evolving and some of the forces driving that evolution.
Abstracts:
Biodiesel - Good chemistry and good business?
Dwaine Dodson, Middough
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Over the last 15 years in the U.S. and Europe, interest in and production
of Biodiesel as an alternative and renewable fuel has accelerated. This acceleration has
been driven largely by favorable tax incentives and strong support by environmental groups.
This presentation will help you, as a professional, better understand the
chemistry and commercial aspects of Biodiesel manufacturing.
The presentation will cover a number of topics of technical and
commercial interest as well as the history of the industry in the U.S. to date.
Green Diesel Production from Vegetable Oil
Jennifer Holmgren, Chris Gosling, Terry Marker, and Peter Kokayeff, UOP LLC;
Giovanni Faraci and Carlo Perego, Eni S.p.A. Refining and Marketing Division
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This paper discusses a new process technology developed by UOP
and Eni S.p.A to produce green diesel from vegetable oil and illustrates the
advantages this new technology can offer over other processing routes. This
new process utilizes hydrodeoxygenation, decarboxylation and hydroisomerization
reactions to produce a high quality diesel fuel from vegetable oil plus
hydrogen at mild conditions.
The new process integrates well within petroleum refineries
and the high quality green diesel product which is made from this process is
readily blended with diesel fuel. Green diesel product has excellent cetane
and is completely compatible with typical diesel fuels in contrast with
biodiesel which has significant blending limitations.
Speaker Bio: Terry Marker is a Senior Hydroprocessing
Engineer at UOP and the Team Leader of Green Diesel Development at UOP. She
has 33 years of experience in the petroleum and petrochemical industry and has
worked at UOP, Amoco and ARCO. She has an M.S. in Chemical Engineering from
Illinois Institute of Technology and a B.S. in Chemistry from the University
of Illinois. She has over 30 U.S. patents and has written over 20 technical papers.
Biomass-Based Ethanol: A Review
of the Chemistry, Feedstocks, Processes and Projects
Dale Monceaux, AdvanceBio, LLC
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We find ourselves in an exciting period of history. The future holds
economic, environmental, climatic and national security challenges.
Conventional products and industries will give way to conservation and
innovation from the field of biology and related renewable technologies.
Economies will thrive based on what can be produced from our lands, not by
what lies buried beneath them. Plants currently operating or under
construction will place considerable demand on the short-term supply of
starch-based commodity feedstocks. Long term, alternate feedstocks and
associated technologies must arrive in order to meet the growing, global
demand for liquid transportation fuels.
A review of relevant chemistry and associated lignocellulosic feedstock
composition must be considered when developing pretreatment and compatible
fermentation process technologies. A large number of public-sector
researchers is being joined by a fast-growing group of private sector
technology development companies in competition to provide commercially
viable process solutions. This next generation of fuel and chemical
industries based on non-conventional lignocellulosic-based feedstocks is
being supported with federal funding through the United States Department of
Energy Biomass Program, beginning with six major awards. A review of these
topics will provide and overview of the state of the development effort and
opportunity for pioneering new processes and industries to replace
petro-based fuels and chemicals with bio-based alternatives.
Impact of Culture Nutrition on Tolerance of Furan Inhibitors
and the Conversion of High Xylose Concentrations to Ethanol by Pichia stipitis
NRRL Y-7124
P.J. Slininger, National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research,
Agricultural Research Service, USDA, Peoria, IL 61604
Efficient fermentation processes to produce ethanol from both the
hexose and pentose sugars available in low-cost lignocellulosic biomass are sought
to support the expansion of the biofuels industry. Such an expansion is expected
to strengthen our nation by lessening dependence on foreign sources of fuel,
preserving our environment and national resources, and boosting our rural economy.
Stress tolerant microorganisms are needed that are able to consume both hexose and
pentose sugars and also withstand, survive, and function in the presence of stress
factors common to fermentations of lignocellulose hydrolysates, including various
chemical fermentation inhibitors such as furfural, hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), and
ethanol. Furfural and HMF are key byproducts of the dilute acid pretreatment
hydrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass, the most economical method of releasing
hemicellulosic sugars for fermentation to ethanol biofuel. The availability of
tolerant microbial catalysts would allow efficient fermentation of low-cost acid
hydrolysates despite the presence of inhibitory byproducts. Our research has shown
that natural strains of the yeasts Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Pichia
stipitis can survive and adapt to the presence of furfural and HMF and that
this survival is linked in part to a fully functioning pentose phosphate pathway,
likely key in maintaining the cofactor balance needed for the in situ detoxification
of furfural and HMF to their less toxic alcohols (furfuryl alcohol and
2,5-bis-hydroxymethylfuran, respectively). Data will be presented showing the
impact of mineral and nitrogen source composition on the ability of P. stipitis
to survive and detoxify furan inhibitors and to convert high xylose concentrations
efficiently to ethanol. Implications of these findings in context of the current
literature on biomass to ethanol conversion and stress tolerance will be discussed.
Process-based strategies to produce a tolerant initial population and then to foster
and sustain tolerance during growth and ethanol fermentation will be considered.
Integrated Ecosystem and Energy Sustainability:
A Modeling and Management Study
Yogendra Shastri, Dept of Bioengineeringm UIC;
Urmila Diwekar, Vishwamitra Research Institute and UIC; Heriberto Cabezas,
Sustainability Branch, USEPA
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Sustainability is recognized as a highly multi-disciplinary concept
and incorporates systems of multiple time and spatial scales and sustainable management
promotes the structure and operation of the human component of a system (society, economy,
technology, etc.) in such a manner as to reinforce the persistence of the structures and
operation of the natural component (i.e., the ecosystem). The concept of sustainable
development has become even more important in the wake of the impending energy crisis.
Various alternative energy options such as biofuels are being promoted to achieve long
term energy sustainability.
However, owing to the complex interacting sub-systems, an integrated analysis
of the sustainability these alternatives is essential. The need for such an integrated
analysis is strongly demonstrated by the energy against food debate, where excessive
consumption of corn for ethanol production is expected to raise the cost of corn based
food products. Such interactions are often nonlinear and non-intuitive, and hence a
systematic modeling based approach is extremely valuable. For a true understanding of
sustainability, such an analysis should incorporate the important dimensions of
sustainability, namely, ecological, economic and social.
Towards that objective, this work analyzes a generalized dynamic
mathematical model of a combined economic-ecological-social system that has been developed
by the USEPA. The compartmental model presents an abstract representation of our
ecosystem using natural compartments such as plants and animals, resource pools, and
profit maximizing human and industrial sectors. The goal of the work is to perform an
extensive analysis of the model from sustainability perspective. The work can be divided
into two parts. The first part deals with elaborate parameter search work to derive a
model setting that represents a functioning ecosystem. Here, a combination of sampling
analysis and partial correlation coefficient analysis is used. Since the model is
expected to propose policy alternatives, reasonability of the model variable values
is ensured. In the second part, the model is analyzed from a management perspective.
This includes scenario analysis to identify potential catastrophes, and suggestion of
management options (policies) through the solution of a control problem.
The study is expected to put forth relevant and important issues, and
suggest policy options to ensure global sustainability. From an energy perspective,
such a study will allow the regulating bodies to understand the long term and large
scale implications of shifts in energy sources and consumption patterns. This will
ultimately allow them to design efficient policies to ensure energy sustainability.
Speaker Bio: Dr. Yogendra Shastri is a post-doctoral research
associate at the Department of Bioengineering, University of Illinois, Chicago (UIC)
since August 2007. Yogendra has a Bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering and Master's
degree in Systems and Control Engineering from India. He recently completed his Ph.D.
in Bioengineering at UIC with Prof. Urmila Diwekar. As a part of his doctoral research
work, he has worked on various interdisciplinary issues in sustainability and sustainable
management, such as ecosystem sustainability, pollutant trading and infrastructure security.
His primary area of interest is in the applying systems theory techniques for
environmental management and policy development.
