Casio is to continue to cultivate its differenceThey also had slightly less high yields 8And all these platforms are based in LondonMany shares runwaysShares runways are manyThe unlikely coalition lasted for four monthsLast Thursday Xiao Yu commissioned his seventh credit cardBercy spends 25 investigators on the caseVaira VikeFreiberga President of Latvia also jumped into the raceFirst facet of the character the EconomistThe Germany also made statements to this effectThe new generation of fuels left the laboratory. The first experimental pilots out of Earth to validate new processes for the production of cellulosic ethanol or synthetic diesel. Objective: develop a biorefinery for half of the second Decade to make the most of a whole plant fuel, straw or wood. The work of researchers does not improve the performance of the process that the decline in its cost, still much higher than used for current biofuels. With a cost of production 0.4 $ per litre, the new generation is 30-50 more expensive than its predecessors, Brazilian or American.
In Europe or the United States, the two competing pathways, biological and thermochemical, began a race to the investment. The challenge is enormous, since the success of one of the two technologies should modify a part of the landscape of agriculture and the energy industry.
The organic sector, intended for the production of ethanol, is the most prosecuted currently. The US Energy Department preferred it to enhance its biomass. The Genome To Life program spent $ 250 million. The Japan has just announced a refinery project with Honda and the Research Institute for innovative environmental technology (Rite).
In Europe, the Nile (EUR 13 million) Community programme has funded a pilot plant in Swedish Etek, in rnsköldsvik, out already 2 tonnes of ethanol per day. An end of the chain, is between the soft wood such as spruce. In the end, it retrieves the fuel, with an Honourable performance of 200 litres per tonne of ingested dry wood. "When our microorganisms know value in addition to the cellulose Hemi, it will be 300 litres," said Frédéric Monot, Coordinator of Nile to the IFP. It is the only prototype existing in Europe, but it will be supplemented by a second more wholesale in Spain before the end of the year.
Breaking structures
After harvesting, it shreds the biomass to make flour. Next comes the first consisting of physicochemical pretreatment step to break the three types of structures of wood and straw, lignin, cellulose and hemicellulose. But the phase which occupies more than researchers rest enzymatic hydrolysis. As in the pharmacy or green chemistry, cultures of microorganisms are used to produce the enzymes used to carve the cellulose into smaller molecules of sugar polymers. Many labs of biotechnology in the world are seeking to improve strains of bacteria or fungi to obtain the best possible enzymes. Europeans of the Nile project is focused on a single industrial strain that they become genetically engineered to produce new molecules.
Biologists are also found in a second time good fermentation to convert strings of hemicellulose sugars. The lignin remains however too complicated to degrade but Swedish plant already knows the value system of cogeneration of energy. At the time, it is autonomous in energy, the image of the first generation of ethanol plants that burn the sugar-cane bagasse. On the third and final stage, it is less problem because it takes the current processes of fermentation of the sugars into ethanol.
Thermal cracking
The die thermochemical, intended primarily for the production of diesel fuel is dominated by Europeans, fans of the Diesel engine. A single driver of research works elsewhere in the world, in the neutral German Freiberg who produced hundreds of litres per day. In France, research is conducted by the IFP and the CEA. This course builds on thermal cracking and the chemical processing of biomass. Game, 800 to 1,400 C temperatures, involve an enormous energy expenditure that nuclear could fill, hence the support of the ECA. Sector also benefits from support of Total lack of diesel must export its essence.
Biomass is first digested first. Some research projects choose pyrolysis: wood or stems are passed to 500 C in a second to become liquid. The IFP also works with the ECA on roasting, extreme drying of these plant materials. The biomass is then heated reactor, at high temperatures to break all polymers, even the recalcitrant lignin. Everything is question of speed, regulator of the reactions of recombination of the molecules. Too slowly heated, the matter ends in coal. Too quickly, it becomes oil (see box).
After cracking, the addition of an oxidant agent produces a synthesis gas composed of CO and H20. This mixture can then be the next step, the well known Fisher-Tropsch process. Carbon monoxide and Dihydrogen pass through catalysis of iron or cobalt redial desired hydrocarbons, diesel in particular.
However, researchers still have sacred margins of progress. About 100 plant carbon atoms, 20 only end up in the tank, against 80 from oil. Because of the complexity of these technologies and its high consumption of energy, experts already know that the physico-chemical way cannot be practised only by a few huge plants. "Investment will approach 1 billion euros, as an oil refinery." "Europe, could have only one", said Ghislain Gosse, INRA. In comparison, refineries using fully biological pathways will have smaller sizes and will be disseminated in the territory. A scenario that appeals more to the agricultural world. Which is concerned to revive the oil world that he lived with the agri-food sector.