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Hey all,
was looking up the Fluid Catalytic Cracking (one of the processes used to make gasoline from crude oil) on biomass the make gasoline and I haven't found much research regarding it besides news reports. Has anyone tried/researched the making of gasoline from biomass such as grass clippings or the like either on large scale or experimental level?
Thanks,
Sirnobody
Not gasoline, but "biomass" jet fuel. The current cost is about $30 a gallon, vs $3 for petroleum jet. The military and airlines are currently running test flights with a 50 percent blend of it. Its not made from grass clippings and the like, but hydrocracked camelina oil. Gasoline would be much harder to do, given the lower carbon numbers and high antiknock index (octane) requirement that favors only certain molecular structures.
Just three years ago, jatropha was the darling of the energy crop set until it was discovered both crop and oil yields were far below laboratory estimates. Now, we've moved on to the next magical plant, camelina, which both the Air Force and Navy are banking on for as much as half their aviation fuel needs before the end of the decade, a proposal that causes people who understand energy markets to roll their eyes.
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The modern term is Gas To Liquids, GTL. Fischer-Tropsch will not produce gasoline, but again distillate fuels (Jet, diesel, heating oil). An interesting byproduct is synthetic lubricating oil. Large scale projects coming on line in Quatar above huge natural gas fields. Pearl GTL - Shell in Qatar
This is not biomass and still in that politically unstable part of the world, but could be done domestically with natural gas or coal. With coal, excess CO2 is released, so it is not a "green" process.
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