ongoing

Liquid transportation fuels can be produced from non-food waste lignocellulosic biomass.

Project Insights

  • €90,549

    Total Project Costs
  • 1 yr

    Project Duration
  • 2018

    Year Funded

Project Description

The EU Renewable Energy Directive legally mandates all member states to acquire >10% of transportation fuels from renewable sources by 2020. This gap can be filled by the production of oxygenated hydrocarbons from waste lignocellulose (biomass, paper) by acid-hydrolysis to produce a variety of drop-in fuel components. This technology has been proven in the laboratory, but is unproven commercially due to the absence of a number of basic fundamental pieces of information. The work proposed herein will gather essential chemical engineering data on aspects critical to the commercial viability of this process; 1) Determination of the solubility limits of various lignocellulosic wastes in acidified alcohol solvents; 2) Determination of the technical and cost-effectiveness of separation procedures to remove water co-produced with the fuel components; 3) Experimental data characterising the efficiency of the process on a short series of real lignocellulosic feedstocks. All of this information will be combined to produce a chemical engineering process model that will allow for both the technical and economic outcomes of the commercialisation of the process to be known to useful accuracy. This critical information will inform as to what the identity of any further bottlenecks are, or otherwise to the next most prudent step toward the commercialisation of the process and the decarbonising of the Irish transportation sector, particularly the HGV sector.

Project Details

Total Project Cost: €90,549

Funding Agency: SEAI

Year Funded: 2018

Lead Organisation: Trinity College Dublin

Collaborators: University of Limerick

Stephen Dooley

Lead Researcher