Exxon, UW-Madison research collaboration

ExxonMobil and the University of Wisconsin-Madison have renewed for two years an agreement to research the chemistry involved in the conversion of biomass into transportation fuels, the two organizations announced July 17. Under the agreement, George Huber, professor of chemical and biological engineering at UW-Madison, is working with ExxonMobil scientists to better understand the basic chemical transformations involved in generating diesel and jet fuels from biomass.

“The renewal of our agreement with the University of Wisconsin-Madison will continue ExxonMobil’s work with top universities and scientists to discover and advance next-generation energy solutions,” said Vijay Swarup, vice president of research and development for ExxonMobil Research & Engineering Co. “We look forward to continuing our collaboration with the university as we enhance our scientific understanding of advanced biofuels and explore potential new technologies.”

The two organizations say that the research has revolved around a multistep process for converting biomass to transportation fuels. The work will now focus on reducing the number of processing steps involved by using solvents to dissolve the biomass, thus enabling the conversion of the biomass into fuel-sized molecules in a single reactor.

Huber commented that the research will likely involve the use of catalytic technologies already used in the petrochemical industry for the conversion of oil into fuels and chemicals. Apparently it may be possible to use catalysts to transform bio-derived ethanol into diesel and jet fuel. Ethanol is already produced as an additive to gasoline. However, the research is focusing on the use of non-food sources of ethanol, such as corn stover (stalks, leaves and cobs that remain in fields after the corn harvest) and other cellulosic feedstocks, the two organizations say.

“Biofuels have the potential to become a significant option for meeting growing global demand for diesel and jet fuel if low cost and scalable technologies can be developed,” Huber said. “The focus of this fundamental research is to demonstrate technologies that could make such a scenario possible.”

ExxonMobil says that it has formed partnerships with a number of universities around the world to conduct biofuel research.

- ALAN BAILEY