Biofuel researchers have been working tirelessly to develop a self-sustaining technique to convert renewable carbon sources into fuel while removing carbon from our environment and water. Despite significant progress, completing the clean energy cycle has proven difficult. Now, a team of researchers at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has developed a system that does exactly that. The PNNL electrocatalytic oxidation fuel recovery system turns dilute waste carbon into valuable compounds while also generating usable hydrogen, previously thought to be non-recoverable. The process is carbon neutral or even carbon negative because renewable energy is used.
An elegantly designed catalyst combines billions of microscopic metal particles and an electrical current to accelerate energy conversion at room temperature and pressure.
Juan A. Lopez-Ruiz, a PNNL chemical engineer and project leader, speak that current biocrude treatments require the use of high-pressure hydrogen, often generated from natural gas. The system can generate hydrogen while also treating wastewater at near-atmospheric temperatures using excess renewable energy, making it cheap to operate and potentially carbon-neutral.
The team took the system through the steps in the lab, using wastewater samples from an industrial-scale biomass conversion process for more than 200 hours of continuous operation without any loss of efficiency. The only limitation is that the wastewater sample of the research team has been exhausted.
The patent-pending system, according to Lopez-Ruiz, solves several problems that are hindering efforts to make biomass an economically viable source of renewable energy.
Lopez-Ruiz says that although people understand how to convert biomass to fuel, they continue to struggle to make the process energy-efficient, cost-effective and environmentally sustainable, especially especially on a small and scattered scale. However, this new system runs on electricity, which can be generated from renewable sources. It also generates its own heat and fuel to keep working. It can complete the energy recovery cycle.
Clean Sustainable Electrochemical Treatment Technology – or CleanSET – is available for licensing by other companies or municipalities interested in developing it for industry-specific applications in municipal wastewater treatment plants. markets, dairy farms, breweries, chemical manufacturers and food and beverage manufacturers.
