In the United States (US), the Department of Energy (DOE) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have announced US$6 million in funding for three projects that will advance biofuel development and support "US leadership in energy and emissions innovation."
Funded through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the three projects will support research to improve performance and reduce costs of high-impact biofuel production technologies; scale up production systems with industry; and support the national bioeconomy.
Located in three states, the projects will support DOE’s Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) Grand Challenge goals by developing biofuel technologies that use sustainable biomass and waste feedstocks.
These projects will provide industry with new technologies to meet the EPA’s Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) Program requirements to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and expand the nation’s renewable fuels sector while reducing reliance on imported transportation fuel, heating oil, and jet fuel.
Using agricultural residues and wet wastes, the projects also align with DOE’s 2023 Billion-Ton report, an assessment of domestic renewable carbon resources that estimates that the United States can sustainably provide 134 million tonnes of agricultural residues and 32 million tonnes of wet waste in the near term.
This funding will address the development of advanced biofuels through pre-pilot scale-up of integrated biorefinery technologies. The following projects were selected:
- Biogenic Carbon Dioxide to Drop-in Sustainable Aviation Fuel – Air Company Holdings, Brooklyn, New York (NY); US$2 million. The project team plans to scale up a carbon dioxide (CO2) hydrogenation reactor, with a special focus on catalyst yields and the overall reactor flow scheme. This information will be critical for estimating and planning capital expenditures and equipment. The CO2 hydrogenation reactor is part of the selectee’s process for converting biogenic waste carbon dioxide (bioCO2) into 100 percent drop-in sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). Pre-screening testing showed that the SAF can meet compositional requirements and other physical properties of conventional jet fuels. As part of the project, the selectee will generate SAF samples to be used in an ASTM International qualification program.
- Demonstration of the ASPIRE Feedstock Flexible Biomass Deconstruction and Conversion Technology at the Pre-pilot Scale – Erg Bio Inc., Dublin, California (CA); US$1.99 million. This project team will develop the Advanced Solvent Pretreatment for Integrated Biorefineries (ASPIRE) technology which has demonstrated high fermentable sugar release efficiencies from mixed woody feedstocks, agricultural residue mixtures, sorghum bagasse, and sugarcane bagasse with >99 percent solvent recovery rate at the laboratory scale. The ASPIRE process uses distillable solvents at moderate temperatures and pressures that are integrated with a consolidated bioprocessing (CBP) host that secretes the saccharolytic enzymes that liberate sugars and then ferment those sugars into ethanol.
- Continuous Conversion of Corn Stover to Ethanol Using Engineered Thermophilic Bacteria – Terragia Biofuels, Hanover, New Hampshire (NH); US$1.99 million. The project team aims to advance corn stover conversion to ethanol via CBP with engineered thermophilic bacteria. Key objectives include: implementing CBP at industrially relevant solids loading using continuous processing and developed bacterial strains, demonstrating a ≥ 2-fold reduction in reaction time with cascade continuous operation, operating at a 0.5 dry tonne per day pilot scale, projecting favorable economics with techno-economic analysis, and leading activities aimed at promoting understanding of the bioeconomy, biofuels, and related workforce development.
