From Guest Blogger Jordan: Biofuels Can Provide the Same Amount of Energy as Crude Oil

Biofuels have been gaining a lot of popularity in recent years, due to rising oil prices and increased concern over the effects that fossil fuels have on the environment, but they are still far from being a true and viable alternative to gasoline, as the natural gas. This is largely because oil produced from plants can not generate as much energy as crude oil, and it’s usually of worse quality, as well. This has been one of the biggest hurdles for biofuels, preventing a more widespread adoption, outweighing the fact that they are much better for the environment than fossil fuels.

However, there is a chance that the main drawbacks of biofuels – relatively poor quality and low energy content – will be eliminated soon, since there is a new technology that is being developed in the Netherlands, that could help improve the quality of biofuels and increase energy content per liter. Researchers at the University of Twente in the Netherlands have developed a new catalyst that can reduce acid levels and water content in biofuels, which have been their main weaknesses so far.

Researchers have created a catalyst out of sodium carbonate on an aluminum sheet, which is applied to the oil generated from biomass, while it is being heated in nitrogen at 500 degrees Celsius. By increasing the temperature the oil is heated at, and by adding a sodium carbonate catalyst, researchers say that the energy content of the oil can be raised from 20 to 33-37 million joules per kilogram. This is a significant increase that can make biofuels nearly as quality as diesel fuel, which has extremely high energy per liter content. What’s more, researchers say that they can improve biofuel even further, by adding cesium – an alkali metal – in the catalysation process, to reduce the toxic smell that is released when the oil is burned.

“By doing so, we can, for instance, also reduce the aromatics, which are harmful when inhaled,” said Prof. Kulathuiyer Seshan, one of the scientists leading this research project.

On top of having higher energy content, the oil that is generated through this method has another advantage over previous-generation biofuel, as it doesn’t contribute to a potential food crisis, that could be created through an increased use of food crops for making ethanol, one of the most common biofuels in the world. Unlike conventional methods for production of biofuels, that use corn, sugar cane, or wheat, researchers at the University of Twente are using waste vegetation. This means that there is no competition between crops that biofuels are derived from and food crops, which has also been one of the reasons why biofuels have not become mainstream yet.

This technology is being tested by KIOR, a renewable fuels company based in Texas, that is using the sodium carbonate catalyst to produce 4,500 barrels of oil per day. In addition to the University of Twente, the same technology is being further developed at the University of Groningen and Utrecht University, as part of the CATCHBIO programme of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research.