DOE Gives Southern Research Institute $925,000 for Bio-Oil Work

by Chris Hanson (Biomass Magazine) Southern Research Institute won a $925,000 energy award from the U.S. DOE to develop a mild liquefaction process to convert biomass to petroleum refinery-ready bio-oils.

“We hope the project will advance liquefaction by demonstrating cost-effective biomass conversion to stable bio-oils at mild conditions,” said Santosh Gangwal, SRI principal investigator . “Other liquefaction processes either use severe conditions or expensive catalysts to achieve stability. We will also evaluate the suitability and process economics of directly blending our bio-oils with refinery hydrotreater and cracker streams for co-production of diesel and gasoline.”

SRI’s facilities in North Carolina enable it to evaluate engine and emission changes when combusting fuels such as biodiesel, ethanol, biogas and others. The evaluations are performed by test engineers using internal equipment and automotive testing laboratories in real-world settings.