Research finds way to cheaper biofuels

A new approach toward treating, transporting and refining biofuel feedstock could help bring biofuel costs down to as little as €0.50 to €1.04 per litre, according to research from the Karlruhe Institute of Technology.

Researchers Edmund Henrich, Nicolaus Dahmen and Eckhard Dinjus say their process — dubbed bioliq® — involves first liquefying feedstock to make it denser and more efficient to transport by weight to a refinery. The “densified biosyncrude” could then be shipped by electric rail from many local facilities to a large, centralised biosynfuel plant, making for improved processing efficiency.

“The breakdown of BTL (biomass to liquid) synfuel manufacturing costs of (about) 1 € /kg in central EU shows that about half of the costs are caused by the biofeedstock, including transport,” the researchers write in their study (PDF). “The other half is caused by technical costs, which are about proportional to the total capital investment (TCI) for the pyrolysis and biosynfuel production plants.”

The Cleantech Group reports that the researchers are working with Lurgi, a German engineering firm, to build a bioliq® processing facility by2012.