Biofuel for €0.50 per liter?

Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology have developed a process called bioliq to produce cheap biofuel by pre-processing biomass regionally.

Traditionally, biomass is trucked to large fuel processing plants because of the complex production methods. With the bioliq process, plants are converted to an oily liquid called biosyncrude in several locations before being transported to one central processing plant.

The oily liquid has a density 10 times the amount of plant materials and costs less to transport than bulky plants. Researchers estimate the bioliq process brings the cost down to €0.50 to €1.04 per liter ($2.46 to $5.12 per U.S. gallon).

The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology is working with German process engineering firm Lurgi to construct a bioliq plant by 2012.  Researchers said they expect their bioliq process to be used for specialty chemicals.

The cleantech sector is under pressure to cut the cost to produce biofuels, which are being mandated by governments including Germany, India, and the U.S. (see India, EU affirm new biofuels).

Scientists are taking varied approaches, with startups such as Algenol Biofuels, GreenFuel Technologies and Solazyme betting on algae oil as a feedstock for biodiesel (see Turning algae into ethanol, and gold).

Emeryville, Calif.-based Amyris Biotechnologies is working on a method to produce biofuel using microbes and sugar by 2010 (see Microbes drive new Amyris biodiesel plant). Similarly, Genomatica is developing process to use the microbe E. Coli to consume sugar and produce chemicals for plastics, solvents, pharmaceuticals, automotive components and textiles (see Genomatica develops novel bioplastic).

The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology’s bioliq process uses pyrolysis to produce liquid biofuel and other chemicals from plant materials. Pyrolysis transforms plant material into biosyncrude by heating it in the absence of air. A stream of oxygen vaporizes the oily liquid, then heats it at high pressures to produce carbon monoxide and hydrogen syngas. Further purification converts the substance to chemicals such as methanol, hydrogen and synthetic diesel.

Nicolaus Dahmen, who led the research, based the cost estimates on existing plants where coal and natural gas are converted to liquid synthetic fuel. Scientists said several things contributed to the lower costs: building bioliq pre-processing plants on existing brownfields, reducing transport costs with dense biosyncrude instead of bulky biomass, and operating a large, productive central plant.

The Karlsruhe research appeared in the January issue of trade journal Biofuels, Bioproducts & Biorefining.