Biogasoline
Encyclopedia
Biogasoline is gasoline produced from biomass
such as algae
. Like traditionally produced gasoline, it contains between 6 (hexane
) and 12 (dodecane
) carbon atoms per molecule and can be used in internal-combustion engines. Biogasoline is chemically different from biobutanol and bioethanol, as these are alcohol
s, not hydrocarbons.
Companies such as Diversified Energy Corporation are developing approaches to take triglyceride inputs and through a process of deoxygenation and reforming (cracking, isomerizing, aromatizing, and producing cyclic molecules) producing biogasoline. This biogasoline is intended to match the chemical, kinetic, and combustion characteristics of its petroleum counterpart, but with much higher octane levels. Others are pursuing similar approaches based on hydrotreating. And lastly still others are focused on the use of woody biomass for conversion to biogasoline using enzymatic processes.
gasoline in any conventional gasoline engine, and can be distributed in the same fueling infrastructure, as the properties match traditional gasoline from petroleum. Dodecane requires a small percentage of octane booster to match gasoline. Ethanol fuel
(E85
) requires a special engine and has lower combustion energy and corresponding fuel economy
.
But do to biogasoline's chemical similarities it can also be mixed with regular gasoline. You can have higher ratios of biogasoline to gasoline and not have to modify the vehicles engine unlike ethanol .
. From there, the materials go through further conventional chemical processing to yield the final result: a mixture of non-oxygenated hydrocarbons that is cost-effective. These hydrocarbons are the exact hydrocarbons found in petroleum fuels which is why today’s cars do not need to be altered to run on biogasoline. The only difference is in origin. Petroleum
based fuels are made from oil, and biogasoline is made from plants such as beets and sugarcane or cellulosic biomass which would normally be plant waste.
has been researching for the past four years on making stable biogasoline in current oil refineries. Their focus of the research was the length of time bio-oil’s self-life. The use of catalysts was used in order to remove impurities from the processed plant sugars. The researchers extended the time from three months to over a year .
Iowa State University
researchers use a type of fermentation in their research. They first start by forming a gaseous mixture and pyrolysize it. The result of the pyrolysis is bio-oil which the sugar rich portion is fermented and distilled to create water and ethanol. But the high acetate portion is then separated into biogasoline, water, and biomass .
has developed a technique to turn plant sugars from wheat straw, corn stalks, and sugarcane pulp into biogasoline. The sugars are converted into hydrocarbons similar to those in regular gasoline by the use of catalysts. The biogasoline has a higher octane rating than ethanol and can also be mixed in higher percentage with gasoline and still be run in a normal vehical engine.
While there may be some problems facing the economic viability of biogasoline, the partnership between Royal Dutch Shell and Virent Energy Systems, Inc., a bioscience firm based in Madison, WI, to further research biogasoline is an encouraging sign for biogasoline’s future. In addition, many nations are enacting policies that increase the use of biogasoline within the country to help curb the cost of fossil fuels and create more energy independence. Current efforts by the partnership are focused on improving the technology and making it available for large-scale production.
Biomass
Biomass, as a renewable energy source, is biological material from living, or recently living organisms. As an energy source, biomass can either be used directly, or converted into other energy products such as biofuel....
such as algae
Algae
Algae are a large and diverse group of simple, typically autotrophic organisms, ranging from unicellular to multicellular forms, such as the giant kelps that grow to 65 meters in length. They are photosynthetic like plants, and "simple" because their tissues are not organized into the many...
. Like traditionally produced gasoline, it contains between 6 (hexane
Hexane
Hexane is a hydrocarbon with the chemical formula C6H14; that is, an alkane with six carbon atoms.The term may refer to any of four other structural isomers with that formula, or to a mixture of them. In the IUPAC nomenclature, however, hexane is the unbranched isomer ; the other four structures...
) and 12 (dodecane
Dodecane
Dodecane is a liquid alkane hydrocarbon with the chemical formula CH310CH3 , an oily liquid of the paraffin series. It has 355 isomers....
) carbon atoms per molecule and can be used in internal-combustion engines. Biogasoline is chemically different from biobutanol and bioethanol, as these are alcohol
Alcohol
In chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms....
s, not hydrocarbons.
Companies such as Diversified Energy Corporation are developing approaches to take triglyceride inputs and through a process of deoxygenation and reforming (cracking, isomerizing, aromatizing, and producing cyclic molecules) producing biogasoline. This biogasoline is intended to match the chemical, kinetic, and combustion characteristics of its petroleum counterpart, but with much higher octane levels. Others are pursuing similar approaches based on hydrotreating. And lastly still others are focused on the use of woody biomass for conversion to biogasoline using enzymatic processes.
Structure and Properties of Biogasoline
BG100, or 100% biogasoline, can immediately be used as a drop-in substitute for petroleumPetroleum
Petroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other liquid organic compounds, that are found in geologic formations beneath the Earth's surface. Petroleum is recovered mostly through oil drilling...
gasoline in any conventional gasoline engine, and can be distributed in the same fueling infrastructure, as the properties match traditional gasoline from petroleum. Dodecane requires a small percentage of octane booster to match gasoline. Ethanol fuel
Ethanol fuel
Ethanol fuel is ethanol , the same type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages. It is most often used as a motor fuel, mainly as a biofuel additive for gasoline. World ethanol production for transport fuel tripled between 2000 and 2007 from 17 billion to more than 52 billion litres...
(E85
E85
E85 is an abbreviation for an ethanol fuel blend of up to 85% denatured ethanol fuel and gasoline or other hydrocarbon by volume. E85 is commonly used by flex-fuel vehicles in the US, Canada, and Europe. Some of the benefits of E85 over conventional gasoline powered vehicles include the potential...
) requires a special engine and has lower combustion energy and corresponding fuel economy
Fuel economy in automobiles
Fuel usage in automobiles refers to the fuel efficiency relationship between distance traveled by an automobile and the amount of fuel consumed....
.
But do to biogasoline's chemical similarities it can also be mixed with regular gasoline. You can have higher ratios of biogasoline to gasoline and not have to modify the vehicles engine unlike ethanol .
Biogasoline Compared to common fuels
| Fuel Fuel Fuel is any material that stores energy that can later be extracted to perform mechanical work in a controlled manner. Most fuels used by humans undergo combustion, a redox reaction in which a combustible substance releases energy after it ignites and reacts with the oxygen in the air... |
Energy Density Energy density Energy density is a term used for the amount of energy stored in a given system or region of space per unit volume. Often only the useful or extractable energy is quantified, which is to say that chemically inaccessible energy such as rest mass energy is ignored... MJ/L |
Air-fuel ratio Air-fuel ratio Air–fuel ratio is the mass ratio of air to fuel present in an internal combustion engine. If exactly enough air is provided to completely burn all of the fuel, the ratio is known as the stoichiometric mixture, often abbreviated to stoich... |
Specific Energy Specific energy Specific energy is defined as the energy per unit mass. Common metric units are J/kg. It is an intensive property. Contrast this with energy, which is an extensive property. There are two main types of specific energy: potential energy and specific kinetic energy. Others are the gray and sievert,... MJ/kg |
Heat of Vaporization MJ/kg |
RON Octane rating Octane rating or octane number is a standard measure of the anti-knock properties of a motor or aviation fuel. The higher the octane number, the more compression the fuel can withstand before detonating... |
MON Octane rating Octane rating or octane number is a standard measure of the anti-knock properties of a motor or aviation fuel. The higher the octane number, the more compression the fuel can withstand before detonating... |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gasoline Gasoline Gasoline , or petrol , is a toxic, translucent, petroleum-derived liquid that is primarily used as a fuel in internal combustion engines. It consists mostly of organic compounds obtained by the fractional distillation of petroleum, enhanced with a variety of additives. Some gasolines also contain... |
34.6 | 14.6 | 46.9 | 0.36 | 91–99 | 81–89 |
| Butanol fuel Butanol fuel Butanol may be used as a fuel in an internal combustion engine. Because its longer hydrocarbon chain causes it to be fairly non-polar, it is more similar to gasoline than it is to ethanol... |
29.2 | 11.2 | 36.6 | 0.43 | 96 | 78 |
| Ethanol fuel Ethanol fuel Ethanol fuel is ethanol , the same type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages. It is most often used as a motor fuel, mainly as a biofuel additive for gasoline. World ethanol production for transport fuel tripled between 2000 and 2007 from 17 billion to more than 52 billion litres... |
24.0 | 9.0 | 30.0 | 0.92 | 129 | 102 |
| Methanol fuel Methanol fuel Methanol is an alternative fuel for internal combustion and other engines, either in combination with gasoline or directly . It is used in racing cars and in China... |
19.7 | 6.5 | 15.6 | 1.2 | 136 | 104 |
Biogasoline Production
Biogasoline is created by turning sugar directly into gasoline. In late March of 2010, the world’s first biogasoline demonstration plant was started in Madison, WI by Virent Energy Systems, Inc. Virent discovered and developed a technique called Aqueous Phase Reforming (APR) in 2001. APR includes many processes including reforming to generate hydrogen, dehydrogenation of alcohols/hydrogenation of carbonyls, deoxygenation reactions, hydrogenolysis and cyclization. The input for APR is a carbohydrate solution created from plant material, and the product is a mixture of chemicals and oxygenated hydrocarbonsHydrocarbon
In organic chemistry, a hydrocarbon is an organic compound consisting entirely of hydrogen and carbon. Hydrocarbons from which one hydrogen atom has been removed are functional groups, called hydrocarbyls....
. From there, the materials go through further conventional chemical processing to yield the final result: a mixture of non-oxygenated hydrocarbons that is cost-effective. These hydrocarbons are the exact hydrocarbons found in petroleum fuels which is why today’s cars do not need to be altered to run on biogasoline. The only difference is in origin. Petroleum
Petroleum
Petroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other liquid organic compounds, that are found in geologic formations beneath the Earth's surface. Petroleum is recovered mostly through oil drilling...
based fuels are made from oil, and biogasoline is made from plants such as beets and sugarcane or cellulosic biomass which would normally be plant waste.
Academic
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State UniversityVirginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, popularly known as Virginia Tech , is a public land-grant university with the main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia with other research and educational centers throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States, and internationally.Founded in...
has been researching for the past four years on making stable biogasoline in current oil refineries. Their focus of the research was the length of time bio-oil’s self-life. The use of catalysts was used in order to remove impurities from the processed plant sugars. The researchers extended the time from three months to over a year .
Iowa State University
Iowa State University
Iowa State University of Science and Technology, more commonly known as Iowa State University , is a public land-grant and space-grant research university located in Ames, Iowa, United States. Iowa State has produced astronauts, scientists, and Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners, along with a host of...
researchers use a type of fermentation in their research. They first start by forming a gaseous mixture and pyrolysize it. The result of the pyrolysis is bio-oil which the sugar rich portion is fermented and distilled to create water and ethanol. But the high acetate portion is then separated into biogasoline, water, and biomass .
Private
Virent Energy Systems, Inc. which is located in Madison, Wisconsin in conjunction with ShellRoyal Dutch Shell
Royal Dutch Shell plc , commonly known as Shell, is a global oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the fifth-largest company in the world according to a composite measure by Forbes magazine and one of the six...
has developed a technique to turn plant sugars from wheat straw, corn stalks, and sugarcane pulp into biogasoline. The sugars are converted into hydrocarbons similar to those in regular gasoline by the use of catalysts. The biogasoline has a higher octane rating than ethanol and can also be mixed in higher percentage with gasoline and still be run in a normal vehical engine.
Economic Viability and Future of Biogasoline
One of the major problems facing the economic viability of biogasoline is the high up- front cost. Research groups are finding that current investment groups are impatient with the pace of biogasoline progress. In addition, environmental groups may demand that biogasoline that is produced within wildlife be produced in a way that protects wildlife, especially fish. A research group studying the economic viability of biofuels found that current techniques of production and high costs of production will prevent biogasoline from being accessible to the general public. The group determined that the price of biogasoline would need to be approximately $800 per barrel, which they determine as unlikely with current production costs. Another problem inhibiting the success of biogasoline is the lack of tax relief. The government is providing tax relief for ethanol fuels but has yet to offer tax relief for biogasoline. This makes biogasoline a much less attractive option to consumers. Lastly, producing biogasoline could have a large affect on the farming industry. If biogasoline became a serious alternative, a large percentage of our existing arable land would be converted to grow crops soley for biogasoline. This could decrease the amount of land used to farm food for human consumption and may decrease overall feedstock. This would cause a increase in overall food cost.While there may be some problems facing the economic viability of biogasoline, the partnership between Royal Dutch Shell and Virent Energy Systems, Inc., a bioscience firm based in Madison, WI, to further research biogasoline is an encouraging sign for biogasoline’s future. In addition, many nations are enacting policies that increase the use of biogasoline within the country to help curb the cost of fossil fuels and create more energy independence. Current efforts by the partnership are focused on improving the technology and making it available for large-scale production.
Research institutes
- Breaking the Chemical and Engineering Barriers to Lignocellulosic Biofuels: Workshop participants list