Advanced BioFuels USA

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest)  From California the jury’s come in for Vertimass. We received word of a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, which summarizes key attributes of Vertimass’ unique technology for the conversion of alcohols into hydrocarbons which are compatible for blending with jet, gasoline, and diesel fuels.

The analysis, published here, showed that this single-step process for converting wet ethanol vapor could produce blendstocks at $2/gigajoule (GJ) today and $1.44/GJ in the future as the process is refined, including operating and annualized capital costs.

That’s competitive with $100 barrel of oil today and $72 down the line, without a price for carbon.  These predicted unit energy costs are similar to those estimated for removing water from the same ethanol vapor to meet fuel grade requirements ($1.46/GJ), the researchers found.

About that carbon price

Get over it, skeptic. Given the fires, floods, flight-shaming, demonstrations, and what not, the social fabric will no longer tolerate the economy not putting a price on carbon. It may not have value in the conventional sense that a product attribute does, but think of it this way, do people really pay all that money for Lamborghinis so they can race up and down streets at 200 miles per hour along streets with a 25 MPH limit — that’s the product value — or for image-building, which is the intangible value. Carbon is different than brand value but it is an intangible with real value.

The secret sauce: it’s the technology

The paper also reports on the favorable impacts of improvements on the competitiveness and greenhouse gas emissions of this simple technology. Unlike prior processes for converting alcohols into hydrocarbons with steps for dehydration, oligomerization, and hydrogenation, the Vertimass consolidated alcohol dehydration and oligomerization (CADO) conversion is accomplished in a single reactor system using a metal exchanged zeolite catalyst.

Through the ability to process vapor containing about 40% ethanol in water that is released when fermentation streams are volatilized, overall CADO costs for conversion of wet ethanol into the hydrocarbon blendstocks are estimated at $2.00/GJ today with the potential to drop to $1.44/GJ in the near future.   Increased oil prices or current production incentives make Vertimass fuel cost competitive, and CADO-derived hydrocarbon blendstocks pass on greenhouse gas emission reductions of the ethanol feedstock.

The initial discovery was supported by the Center for Bioenergy Innovation at ORNL, which in turn is supported by the DOE Office of Science. Scale-up research and development were supported in part by the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and by Vertimass.

Comparing to other technologies

The researchers write:  READ MORE

Paper Published in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) Reports Significant Advances and Cost and Environmental Advantages for Vertimass Technology (Vertimass/Market Insider)

Technoeconomic and life-cycle analysis of single-step catalytic conversion of wet ethanol into fungible fuel blendstocks (Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences)

Ethanol can be Effective Intermediate for Sustainable Production of Low-Cost Fuels (AZO CleanTech)

Vertimass Receives DOE Funding to Optimize Renewable Jet Fuel (NGT News)