U.S. Government Backs New Way to Make Diesel from Biomass
The
U.S. Energy Department is investing up to $4.3 million in a pilot
biomass project that will convert the stalks and leaves of corn plants
into diesel fuel using a new chemical process.
The pilot plant in Indiana will be run by Mercurius Biofuels, whose
goal is to convert the corn biomass into fuel at prices cheap enough to
compete with petroleum. Mercurius’s process uses recyclable acids to
break down cellulose and make a chemical called chloromethylfurfural,
which can be converted into diesel or jet fuel. The inventor of the
process, Mark Mascal, a professor of chemistry at the University of
California, Davis, says the technology makes more efficient use of the
carbon in cellulose and avoids the significant releases of carbon
dioxide involved in a common way of making fuel from biomass —
converting the cellulose into sugar and fermenting it to make ethanol.
Mercurius says the corn stalks and leaves can be converted into
chloromethylfurfural at small, local plants and then shipped to larger
refineries to make diesel fuel, thus avoiding the high cost of shipping
the biomass itself to a central refinery.
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