Synthetic Gasoline from biomass and solar power

As we all know concentrated solar energy is the most commonly used renewable energy for electrical power generation. Now, a Colorado company, called Sundrop Fuels, has a new approach to the production of biofuel. The company combines the mirrors and tower of concentrated solar power with the process for the production of bio-based fuels.

Where conventional biomass-producers burn biomass for the energy needed to create biofuel, Sundrop uses concentrated solar as their energy source to gasify a range of feedstocks like agricultural waste, energy crops and wood waste. The company claims it can produce a wide range of fuels including gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel.

The company uses the high temperatures from the concentrated solar array to vaporize the biomass feedstock and form it into syngas, which is a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. The syngas forms the basic ingredient of the fuel it is turned into.

This method has more efficiencies that provide additional benefits, for example, by using the solar array, the process yields 100 to 125 gallons of fuel per ton of biomass, which is more than twice what normal biomass-producers can obtain. Next to that the process also requires far less water then other biomass systems. Only a half gallon of water is needed to produce a gallon of fuel, compared to 6 to 7 gallons required in other systems.

Sundrop expects that its process can create gasoline, without any subsidies, for less than 2 dollars per gallon. Currently the company is constructing a pilot plant and aims to have a full, commercial-scale plant of 100 million gallons operational by 2015.

Source : http://www.tomorrowisgreener.com/synthetic-gasoline-from-biomass-and-solar-power/