DOE Invests $80 Million in Advanced Biofuels Research and Fueling Infrastructure, Funds from American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced, on January 13th,  the investment of nearly $80 million under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for advanced biofuels research and fueling infrastructure that will help support the development of a clean sustainable transportation sector. 

The selections announced which include two biofuels consortia for up to $78 million to research algae-based and other advanced biofuels, are part of the Department’s continued effort to spur the creation of the domestic bio-industry while creating jobs.

“Advanced biofuels are crucial to building a clean energy economy,” said Secretary Chu. “By harnessing the power of science and technology, we can bring new biofuels to the market and develop a cleaner and more sustainable transportation sector.   This investment will help spur the creation of the domestic bio-industry, while creating jobs and reducing our dependence on foreign oil.”

Biofuels Consortia
Two cross-functional groups will seek to break down critical barriers to the commercialization of algae-based and other advanced biofuels such as green aviation fuels, diesel, and gasoline that can be transported and sold using today’s existing fueling infrastructure. The selected projects consist of leading scientists and engineers from universities, private industry, and government, and will facilitate sharing expertise and technologies.

The two consortia selected for funding are:

National Alliance for Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts (NAABB) ($44 million)—Led by the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center (St. Louis, MO), NAABB will develop a systems approach for sustainable commercialization of algal biofuel (such as renewable gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel) and bioproducts. NAABB will integrate resources from companies, universities, and national laboratories to overcome the critical barriers of cost, resource use and efficiency, greenhouse gas emissions, and commercial viability. It will develop and demonstrate the science and technology necessary to significantly increase production of algal biomass and lipids, efficiently harvest and extract algae and algal products, and establish valuable certified co-products that scale with renewable fuel production. Co-products include animal feed, industrial feedstocks, and additional energy generation. Multiple test sites will cover diverse environmental regions to facilitate broad deployment.

National Advanced Biofuels Consortium (NABC) (up to $33.8 million)—Led by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, NABC will conduct cutting-edge research to develop infrastructure compatible, biomass-based hydrocarbon fuels. The result will be a sustainable, cost-effective production process that maximizes the use of existing refining and distribution infrastructure. NABC will investigate a variety of process strategies and down select to those closest to larger scale demonstration. The NABC plans to further develop these strategies to deliver a pilot-ready process, with full lifecycle analysis to measure the environmental benefits.

Collectively, these consortia will be matched by private and non-federal cost-share funds of more than $19 million for total project investments of over $97 million.

Secretary Chu also announced today the selection of eight infrastructure projects to receive up to $1.6 million to support expanded fueling infrastructure for ethanol blends.  The projects announced today will expand ethanol blends infrastructure at existing retail fueling locations in nine states: Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, Texas, Virginia, and Washington.  The projects plan to install E85 pumps, retrofit existing pumps to dispense E85, and install blender pumps that offer ethanol blends up to 85 percent at over 60 stations. Collectively, the projects propose creating at least 45 E85 dispensers and 16 blender pumps along key driving corridors and areas with higher concentrations of flexible fuel vehicles.  

The infrastructure projects will be matched with $3.9 million in non-federal cost-share funds, for total projects investments of $5.5 million.  Other projects are presented in the table below.

View the complete list and project descriptions of awards announced.

Gold Nanotube Catalytic Process Removes CO from H2 Gas for Fuel Cells, Eliminates Need for Water-Gas Shift & Captures Energy in CO to Generate More Power

 A cheaper and more efficient process to produce clean hydrogen from hydrocarbon fuels for use in fuel cells uses gold nanotubes to do the job.

University of Wisconsin Chemical and Biological Engineering Professor James Dumesic and  Won Kim developed a new nanotechnology method for producing hydrogen gas for fuel cells.   

The process typically involves two steps. First, hydrocarbons, such as gasoline or natural gas, are converted into a gaseous mixture of hydrogen, carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO₂). Next, in a process called the water-gas shift, steam is generated and reacted with the CO to produce CO₂.

The water-gas shift is needed to remove the CO because CO’s presence in hydrogen gas will poison a fuel cell’s metal electrode. But the water gas shift is costly due to the large amount of energy needed to vaporize water to steam. This technology now provides a catalytic process to remove CO from hydrogen gas that not only eliminates the need for the water-gas shift, but also captures the energy in CO to generate power.

The Wisconsin invention uses gold nanotube or nanoparticle catalysts to oxidize CO to CO₂ within an aqueous solution of polyoxometalate (POM) compounds. As the CO is oxidized, the POM compounds are reduced, resulting in an energy-dense solution of protons and electrons associated with the reduced POM cations. This solution can then be fed directly into proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells to generate power.

KEY BENEFITS

• Unlike any previous technique for making hydrogen, this invention simultaneously removes CO from gas streams and captures CO’s energy to generate power


• CO to CO₂ conversion takes place at room temperature, resulting in significant energy- and cost-savings


• By eliminating the need for the water-gas shift, this invention also eliminates the need for large quantities of water, making on-site or portable hydrogen production more feasible


• Shows particular promise for energy production using renewable, biomass-derived fuels, (e.g., ethylene glycol derived from corn or glycerol derived from bio-diesel production) because these fuels generate hydrogen and CO in nearly equal amounts during catalytic decomposition


• Solutions of reduced POM compounds provide a stable, energy-dense fuel source that can be stored at room temperature


• POMs are environmentally-benign


• Unlike previous CO oxidation methods that use irreversible oxidizing agents (e.g., oxygen), POM compounds are reversibly oxidized, allowing their direct use as fuel sources


• Could lead to much less expensive fuel cell technology, because reduced POM solutions can be re-oxidized to generate electricity by using simple, carbon anodes, rather than expensive platinum ones.

The technologies is available for licensing form the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation

Related Technologies

For more information on this technology, see Kim, WB et al. (2004) Powering fuel cells with CO via aqueous polyoxometalates and gold catalysts. Science. 305(5688):1280-1283

Intellectual Property Status

View U.S. Patent Application Publication in PDF format

For current licensing status, please contact the contact Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation team at licensing@warf.org or phone 608.262.4924.

U.S.-German Team Unlock Algae Secrets, Discovery Could Lead to Improved Biofuel Production

Light is of vital importance. However, excessive sunbathing causes sunburn – and not only in people and animals. Intensive exposure to sunlight can be harmful for plants, too. A team of scientists from Münster and the USA have now been able to show for the first time how green algae protect themselves against such damage. The journal “Nature” carries a report on this in the issue published on 26 November 2009.

Plants are dependent on sunlight for growth. With the aid of light energy they produce sugar molecules which are converted into components of their cells and act as suppliers of energy. In this process plants extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and release oxygen. This process – called photosynthesis – is the basis of all life on earth. “Photosynthesis provides the vegetable biomass – and thus the basis of food supply – for people and animals,” says Prof. Michael Hippler from the Institute of Biochemistry and Plant Biotechnology at Münster University.

However, using light energy to produce biomass is a tricky business for plants. The absorption of light through cellular pigment molecules, e.g. through chlorophyll, can lead to the production of oxygen radicals in plants and thus damage them. “In order to protect themselves from such oxidative destruction – ‘sunburn’, so to speak,” says Prof. Hippler, “plants have developed mechanisms for converting the surplus light energy into heat energy. Although algae produce a large share of the biomass generated worldwide, very little was known up to now about this protective mechanism in algae – in contrast to flowering plants.”

An international team of scientists led by Prof. Hippler and Prof. Kris Niyogi from the University of California in Berkeley, USA, have now thrown light on this sun protection mechanism in the unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.  The sun protection factor is a certain light-harvesting protein (LHCSR3). “In general,” explains Prof. Hippler, “such proteins harvest light – as their name suggests – and they make it available for photosynthesis.

In this particular case, however, the protein permits the conversion of light energy to heat energy and in the process it renders the surplus light energy harmless.” In comparison to traditional light-harvesting proteins, LHCSR3 has very old origins, probably stemming directly from the ‘forebear’ of all light-harvesting proteins. If there is any obstacle to the production of this protein, the algae are no longer able to dissipate harmful excess energy. They then get ‘sunburn’, which can in fact result in the alga cells dying.

“Interestingly, flowering plants have lost these protein molecules during their evolution and have developed another sun protection mechanism in which light is also converted into heat energy,” says Prof. Hippler. “The discovery of the ‘sun protection factor’ in algae makes it possible for us to have deep insights into the regulation of aquatic photosynthesis, which is responsible for 50 percent of the primary production of biomass worldwide.” Moreover, he says, the insights could be used to optimize the culture of micro-algae in bio-reactors. In this way the biotechnological production of biomass from algae could be improved, e.g. for the production of bio-fuels.