From California the jury\u2019s come in for Vertimass.<\/p>\n
We received word of a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, which summarizes key attributes of Vertimass\u2019 unique technology for the conversion of alcohols into hydrocarbons which are compatible for blending with jet, gasoline, and diesel fuels.<\/p>\n
The analysis, published here, showed that this single-step process for converting wet ethanol vapor could produce blendstocks at $2\/gigajoule (GJ) today and $1.44\/GJ in the future as the process is refined, including operating and annualized capital costs.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s competitive with $100 barrel of oil today and $72 down the line, without a price for carbon.\u00a0 These predicted unit energy costs are similar to those estimated for removing water from the same ethanol vapor to meet fuel grade requirements ($1.46\/GJ), the researchers found.<\/p>\n
About that carbon price
\nGet over it, skeptic. Given the fires, floods, flight-shaming, demonstrations, and what not, the social fabric will no longer tolerate the economy not putting a price on carbon. It may not have value in the conventional sense that a product attribute does, but think of it this way, do people really pay all that money for Lamborghinis so they can race up and down streets at 200 miles per hour along streets with a 25 MPH limit \u2014 that\u2019s the product value \u2014 or for image-building, which is the intangible value. Carbon is different than brand value but it is an intangible with real value.<\/p>\n
The secret sauce: it\u2019s the technology
\nThe paper also reports on the favorable impacts of improvements on the competitiveness and greenhouse gas emissions of this simple technology. Unlike prior processes for converting alcohols into hydrocarbons with steps for dehydration, oligomerization, and hydrogenation, the Vertimass consolidated alcohol dehydration and oligomerization (CADO) conversion is accomplished in a single reactor system using a metal exchanged zeolite catalyst.<\/p>\n
Through the ability to process vapor containing about 40% ethanol in water that is released when fermentation streams are volatilized, overall CADO costs for conversion of wet ethanol into the hydrocarbon blendstocks are estimated at $2.00\/GJ today with the potential to drop to $1.44\/GJ in the near future. \u00a0 Increased oil prices or current production incentives make Vertimass fuel cost competitive, and CADO-derived hydrocarbon blendstocks pass on greenhouse gas emission reductions of the ethanol feedstock.<\/p>\n
The initial discovery was supported by the Center for Bioenergy Innovation at ORNL, which in turn is supported by the DOE Office of Science. Scale-up research and development were supported in part by the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and by Vertimass.<\/p>\n
Comparing to other technologies<\/p>\n
The researchers write:<\/p>\n
Most technologies for catalytic conversion of ethanol into hydrocarbons involve 3 steps prior to fractionation to meet fuel specifications: 1) Ethanol dehydration to ethylene, 2) ethylene oligomerization to higher molecular weight hydrocarbons, and 3) hydrogenation to saturate these oligomers to produce a finished renewable fuel that can be blended at high levels into conventional fuels. Chemistries and processes for converting ethanol into middle distillate fuels have recently been comprehensively reviewed. Published designs generally require inlet reactor temperatures >400 \u00b0C, pressures of 30 to 40 atm, and externally supplied hydrogen. Companies such as LanzaTech, in collaboration with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Byogy Renewables are pursing processes based on this concept. The ethanol conversion costs to jet fuel via such 3-step approaches have been estimated at $3.38\/GJ to $7.98\/GJ ($0.11 to $0.26\/L jet fuel), with similar values for diesel. When combined with ethanol priced at between $17.4\/GJ and $52.1\/GJ ($0.37 to $1.11\/L ethanol) together with reported yields, the range of jet fuel costs for the 3-step process is $25.5\/GJ to $86.7\/GJ ($0.83 to $2.84\/L). For comparison, prices for petroleum-derived jet fuel in the United States have ranged from $7.9\/GJ to $26.2\/GJ ($0.26 to $0.80\/L) over the last 5 y<\/p>\n
The blend ratio
\nGiven current standards, the advanced biofuel could be blended at 20% with petroleum-derived jet fuel and somewhat higher for gasoline, subject to certification and verification.<\/p>\n
The bad news, if any.<\/p>\n
The best results were obtained using corn as a feedstock to make ethanol, from which the hydrocarbons would arrive into a market skeptical about corn as a feedstock.<\/p>\n
More on the story<\/p>\n