Policymakers and energy security hawks love fuel, but consumers love renewable chemicals that power the everyday applications in their lives — resins, solvents, nutraceuticals, intermediates to make fabrics, nylons, plastics, and more. There’s a dizzying array of candidates — hydrogen for chemistry, methanol ammonia, PLA, PHA, ethanol, ethylene, MEG, ethyl acetate, BDO, PEG, the four-carbon […]
What’s up with the most exciting molecule in the bioeconomy as measured by capacity building? There are greenfield projects, refinery conversions, new technologies headed toward commercial, and the exciting arrival of DME at scale. What are the drivers, who are the players, what technologies are developing and deploying, how does policy play a role — […]
Everything we have learned at The Digest about the State of Plastics and Biomaterials in 2022, we have digested down into these pages, as presented in our latest ABLC CONNECT episode this past week. Whether you’re looking at PET, PLA, PHA, FDCA, FDME, nylons, fabrics, biobased cements and concretes, leathers, packaging, bottling or elsewhere in […]
As we observed once here in Digestville, biomass is where catalysts go to die. How can we change that? Providing fundamental insight and actionable recommendations for extending catalyst lifetime in biomass catalytic conversion by a collective and collaborative effort within ChemCatBio. PNNL’s Huamin Wang led a team to accomplish that and provide us with knowledge […]
Whether it is Mixed C6-C5 Corn Stover Hydrolysate Sugars to Produce Butyric Acid with In-situ Product Removal, or Non-Biological Conversion of Mixed C6-C5 Corn Stover Hydrolysate Sugars to Furans (Furfural, HMF), opportunities abound in biobased chemicals. Where to focus, what are the real opportunities? NREL’s Rick Elanderi led a team to investigate and report.
Ethanol is an attractive feedstock for middle distillate fuels and chemical products. How do we unlock the potential not only for ethanol-to-jet, but for C3+olefin (ETO) opportunities, and more. Dehydrate, oligomerize, hydrogenate – the path to minimizing capex and opex. Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Zhenglong Li led a team to investigate and report.
How do we best develop the centerpiece technology for a market-responsive, integrated biorefinery concept based on the conversion of renewable C1 intermediates to produce a suite of fuels with improved carbon efficiency, reduced capital expense, and control of the product distribution to meet market demand? NREL’s Dan Ruddy led a team to investigate the opportunities […]
Accelerated catalyst and process development cycle enabling demonstrated performance enhancements in half the time. That’s the bold goal of a DOE project aimed at providing a fundamental insight leading to actionable recommendations for critical catalysis challenges by leveraging world-class synthesis and characterization capabilities across multiple DOE National Laboratories. For sure, any way you do it, the […]
Catalytic fast pyrolysis is a versatile technology pathway for the direct liquefaction of biomass and waste carbon sources. In this slide deck from NREL’s Mike Griffin, we explore the Potential for high carbon yields to fuel blendstocks; the Ability to control the product slate through vapor phase catalytic upgrading; and , opportunities for co-processing using […]
This project funded by the US Department of Energy and led by NREL’s Josh Schaidle aims to Guide existing and future research and development efforts by defining key technical challenges, risks, cost/carbon intensity drivers, and future technical targets for utilizing renewable electricity and CO2to improve biorefinery economics and carbon utilization. The team hopes to develop […]
