Mobile plants drive biofuel production

Professor Agrawal and colleagues, researchers from Purdue University, Indiana, have pioneered a biomass-to-liquid fuel conversion technique called fast-hydropyrolysis-hydrodeoxygeneation (H2bioil). In this technique, solid biomass is fed into a high-pressure, hydro-pyrolysis reactor and rapidly heated to 500°C in the presence of hydrogen and a catalyst, breaking down the complex biomass molecules into smaller molecules. To make the process feasible in the short term, the team integrated a natural gas reformer to the plant. In this process, the uncondensed gases that remain after the biomass to liquid fuel conversion can be fed into this steam methane reformer, providing a steady supply of hot hydrogen. Agrawal says that H2Bioil yields more liquid fuel per gram of biomass compared to conventional methods such as the Fischer-Tropsch process.