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Research in the field of nuclear energy and hydrogen gave backers say it is a technology that could replace oil imports in the U.S. for biofuels from agricultural by-products.

Scientists at the Idaho National Laboratory, worked in the past year and a half on the process of converting biomass, such straw or crop residues, into liquid fuels with much greater efficiency than the existing technology of cellulosic ethanol. 

Instead of a single development, technology - called bio-syntrolysis - ties together several processes, but it is electrolysis, or splitting water into hydrogen to do this starting point. In combination with carbon-free source of electricity, this approach can provide a carbon-neutral biofuels, according to the models is on the INL, who researched for decades in nuclear energy.

Bio-syntrolysis is a staggering amount of technology developed with the hopes of replacing gasoline, although none of them have been successfully implemented in the scale. The researchers acknowledge INL Remaining technical barriers, but his latest computer models show that this technique has better potential than biofuel processes of modernity.

The main advantage is that bio-syntrolysis to extract much more energy from biomass than the existing methods, said research engineer Grant Hawkes. Using traditional methods of ethanol production, about 35 percent of carbon from sawdust and agricultural residues falls into liquid fuel. In contrast to bio-syntrolysis method will convert more than 90 percent of this carbon in the fuel, he said.

"This means that if you collect a kilogram of biomass from the floor, you're going to get two and a half times the liquid fuel from bio-syntrolysis than you would from cellulosic ethanol. If the biomass is a valuable commodity, so you 'LL get more out of him, "said Hawkes.

Often quoted by the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Energy study (click for PDF) has estimated that the U.S. produces enough biomass to meet 30 percent of liquid fuel in the country. INL researchers say that the higher productivity of its technology will cover more than a 60 per cent, almost as much oil the U.S. imports.

"This is the only process available that will give us all the liquid fuel, we now need is a carbon neutral with all the biomass that is available, he said.

Although this is a convincing vision, there are a number of technical obstacles to the adoption of bio-syntrolysis cost-effective and environmentally beneficial.

To reduce carbon dioxide emissions are significantly higher than other biomass to liquid processes, technologies INL requires a lot of carbon-free electricity - 1 000 megawatts, will bring enough 25000 barrels of fuel per day, enough to nearly one million people, according to INL models. Full-size nuclear reactor can produce 1,000 megawatts, but even the large farms of wind or solar power is much smaller.

This approach also relies on tying together the various technologies, some of which are relatively immature in terms of commercial deployment. Creating a familiar biofuels a cost-effective is hard enough: After years of research and pilot projects, ethanol from wood chips and grass had not yet made an industrial scale.

Innovations in integrative
Hawkes coined the term bio-syntrolysis represent a combination of technologies, researchers are working. In order for liquid fuels, the use of biomass to synthetic fuels by means of electrolysis of water.

Here's how it will work: a high temperature electrolyzer to divide pairs of oxygen and hydrogen. Oxygen will be supplied to the biomass gasifier, a machine that heats the agricultural waste at high temperatures to produce synthesis gas, a combination of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. This synthesis gas, together with hydrogen from the electrolyzer will be made to the refiner to make a liquid fuel that can replace gasoline, diesel or jet fuel.

The biggest breakthrough technologies in this design is a high temperature electrolysis, which originally came from the program for the study of nuclear reactors could be used to produce hydrogen. But hydrogen-powered vehicles face a number of obstacles, including the storage and infrastructure for the council to produce and distribute pure hydrogen.

In contrast, if hydrogen was used for hydrocarbon fuels, they can be distributed through existing channels and use of existing vehicles, including hybrid electric vehicles.

Back from hydrogen research for biofuels happened when Hawkes thought to biomass heat source for high temperature electrolysis, INL, but not the heat from the nuclear reactor. In making that switch, electrolyser can operate on biomass and electricity alone, and not rely on a nuclear reactor.

"We feel that everyone that each of these technologies is individually proven, but nobody ever took them and connect them together to make one process," said Hawkes.

There are some commercially available gasification of biomass and several objects turn syngas into liquid fuels using coal as raw material. But the processing of coal into a liquid has a high carbon footprint, even when compared to gasoline, "said Hawkes. If renewable or non-carbon sources such as hydropower, can be used for bio-syntrolysis, as a result of fuel will have a very low emissions, "he said.

Hydrogen storage in plants
While INL researchers have done experiments using commercially available products, and they modeled the overall efficiency of the computer. To create a high-temperature cell, they bought a commercial fuel cells and changes in their work in the opposite direction, so that they produce hydrogen and oxygen from electricity.

"There is no need for big discoveries, but there is a need to develop materials and electrolytic cells, and will simply put all the various sources together," said Steve Herring, researcher at the Idaho National Laboratory.

The projected cost of fuel is $ 2.50 per gallon to produce, which is not cheaper than gasoline today. But the main advantage is the fuel domestic sources of low-carbon, and available at a predictable price, Herring said. One of the justifications for the technology is that the biomass for fuel will become a scarce commodity, which makes the methods that can squeeze more energy from existing crops more convincing.

INL researchers suggest that in one place to collect biomass gasifier and run the electrolyzer. Fuel can be refined on the spot or sent to existing facilities. Ash from the gasifier will contain a lot of soil nutrients such as potassium, which can be reallocated in fields that biomass was collected.

Why not just use the hydrogen from the electrolyzer fuel cell vehicles? Hawkes, herring, and said that the technical limitations on hydrogen right now to make an approach that can be deployed without having to wait for technological breakthroughs in hydrogen vehicles.

"It is our observation that the best way to store hydrogen to connect it to an atom of carbon from biomass, and now do so hydrocarbon fuel," said Hawkes.