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BIOGASOLINE – A NEW CONTENDER

Virent Energy Systems (Madison, Wisconsin, USA) announced a new collaboration with Royal Dutch Shell to work on developing a biogasoline that could be used in regular cars and take advantage of existing gasoline infrastructure. This joint research and development project aims to convert plant sugars directly into gasoline and gasoline blend components, rather than converting them into ethanol. The project would create biofuels that can be used at high blend rates in standard gasoline engines.

Shell is one of the largest oil and gas companies in the world, as well as owner of more than 45,000 gas stations.

Virent has a state-of-the-art catalytic biorefining development facility in Madison. The bioforming technology is based on the Aqueous Phase Reforming process, which Virent has exclusively licensed from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. The process uses solid-state catalysts to convert plant sugars into hydrocarbon molecules, similar to those produced at petroleum refineries, rather than fermenting the sugars into ethanol and distilling them. The plant-derived “biogasoline” has a higher energy content and delivers better fuel efficiency than ethanol and can be blended with gasoline or gasoline/ethanol mixes.

Virent said the sugars for its biogasoline can be sourced from non-food sources like corn stover, switch grass, wheat straw and sugarcane pulp, in addition to conventional biofuel feedstock like wheat, corn and sugarcane. “We think the biggest benefit of the process is that we can use whatever the cheapest, most available sugar stream is in that area. So anything that’s a carbohydrate that can be made soluble in water is a candidate feedstock.”

The biomass feedstocks are converted into conventional hydrocarbon fuels and products, including gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. These new biofuels that can be used at high blend rates in standard gasoline engines in place of fossil fuels. This could eliminate the need for specialized infrastructure, new engine designs and blending equipment.

Last year, Virent announced its first partnership with Shell, a five year joint development agreement to commercialize Virent’s platform for hydrogen production from biomass. Most hydrogen produced today is made from fossil fuels, including natural gas and coal, but Virent’s technology, which has it’s roots in hydrogen research, is looking to expand that. “The initial work was to make hydrogen out of sugars. That was kind of the initial excitement. As we worked more with it, we found that we had a really effective way to make a gasoline-like liquid fuel.” Under the new biogasoline project with Shell and Virent, the companies plan to focus on further improving Virent’s BioForming technology and scaling it up for commercial production.

In traditional methods, sugars are fermented into ethanol and distilled. “Virent has proven that sugars can be converted into the same hydrocarbon mixtures of today’s gasoline blends. Our products match petroleum gasoline in functionality and performance.”

“We’re making something that looks just like gasoline with a catalyst. A catalyst has a very wide process window to use many different types of mixed sugars and carbohydrates.”

The new biogasoline molecules “can be blended seamlessly to make conventional gasoline or combined with gasoline containing ethanol,” the two companies said in a joint statement. The biogasoline molecules have a higher energy content than ethanol or butanol and deliver better fuel efficiency, and unlike ethanol, the biogasoline could potentially be transported using the same pipelines as regular gasoline. The biogasoline process delivers more net energy and offers a scalable, cost-effective alternative to traditional biofuel production routes.”

Virent has pulled in $28.5 million in two rounds of financing to date, counting venture capitalists and industry leaders among its backers: Cargill Ventures, is an investor, along with the strategic venture unit of Tokyo’s Honda Motor. and Venture Investors, Stark Investments, Advantage Capital and several others. Virent has also received a little over $10 million in government grants for its research.

The Wisconsin company’s pilot plants can produce about a gallon of fuel a day, and they would likely have a commercial demonstration size in the 10,000 liters range within a few years. Shell and Virent haven’t set a target for how much of the fuel they eventually want to make, predict there will be a high demand. “The benefit of the fuels markets is they’re huge. You look at this year, 160 billion gallons of gasoline will be consumed here in the U.S. alone.”

“Really, the challenge for us will be, ‘How fast can you build capacity?’”