A technology called the “Biomass Catalytic Cracking Process” could be the key to breaking material like wood, grass and corn husks down for ethanol production.
Catalytic cracking is a process already used in today’s petroleum refineries. Simply put, chemicals are used to break down complex organic molecules. The trick is making the reactions between specific chemicals and molecules efficient and controllable, in order to come up with a desirable product like cellulosic ethanol.
The biofuels industry is highly interested in that type of ethanol, but the process of “cracking” the molecular structures of woody plants, whether with chemicals, heat or other methods, has not yet become cost-effective. KiOR is Khosla Ventures’ and BIOeCON’s bet on commercializing a process.
Khosla Ventures provided the new company’s seed funding, but the amount was not disclosed. BIOeCON’s investment is its intellectual property, which includes the catalytic cracking process.
2 Comments
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Stephen Abbanat said:
To my mind, spending the energy to “crack” biomass is needlessly expensive when the technogy exists to extract the BTU’s directly through combustion, if thoughtful biomass is farmed and proper mosture extraction is applied.
I recommend that your readers consider this company http://www.energyperformancesystems.com that received significant funding from EPRI, but for which the power generation potential was never realized. It is sad that with proper utility or governement leadership we could be at 10% clean, renewable generation levels by now (since this companies furnace and concepts were first developed in 1979).
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Ronny Bar-Gadda said:
Dear Sir,
As the first program manager for thermochemical biomass technologies at Exxon (now Exxon-Mobil), I am struck by the lack of understanding of the scale of the problem we are facing. While at Exxon, I had the opportunity to evaluate many of these technologies and found out to my regret that all these process technologies would not make it into the commercial world. It is very difficult to make an efficient biomass conversion process efficient and also we must remember that the primary source of this energy depends on the factors such as the weather. That is why I set out to invent RET (radiant energy transfer) which converts water vapor to hydrogen and oxygen efficiently and economically. The process technology also produces its own electricity which is vital so as to not interfere or compete with other sources of food or energy. Please visit our web site for more information, http://www.genesys-hydrogen. com. We have video that describes our technology. It can also be found on YouTube.
