2/20/2000

Texas A&M University chemical engineers have developed a process that turns organic waste -- biomass -- into a mixed alcohol fuel that's economically feasible, burns cleaner than fossil fuels and doesn't contribute to global warming.

A pilot plant designed to test the technology in production is scheduled to go on line later this spring, says Texas A&M chemical engineer Dr. Mark Holtzapple, winner of the national Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award.

"It generally takes 50 years for an energy technology to go from laboratory development to significant economic impact," says Holtzapple. "Some analysts project that global oil production will peak in 2010 or 2020. Many forecasters fear the United States is already behind in developing biofuels."

To help address this problem, the Clinton administration's budget proposal earlier this month includes $2.1 billion to help promote biofuels during the next decade.

Producing chemicals from waste biomass conserves non-renewable resources like petroleum and natural gas, which reduces the demand for imported oil. Fuels derived from biomass burn cleanly and thus don't contribute new carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Atmospheric carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels has been tied to global warming.

The Texas A&M process -- called MixAlco by its developers -- uses microorganisms from sources such as dirt, compost piles and swamps to convert waste biomass into alcohol-based fuel that could replace essentially all the gasoline we now use.

"Our technology makes use of the organic portion of garbage -- the food scraps, junk mail, newspapers and magazines, yard waste," he says. "That's 60 percent to 70 percent of what otherwise would go into our landfills."

The process also can convert waste biomass into lower-cost animal feed and industrial chemicals -- ingredients for products like nail polish remover, rubbing alcohol and vinegar. It's a win-win technology, Holtzapple says. "Many of these materials have a low value -- or a negative value if there's a disposal cost," he notes. "Shipping sewage sludge from New York to Texas currently runs $500 a ton. Converting waste materials to useful products solves both waste disposal and resource shortage problems.

"If we used only garbage as a raw material, we could replace seven percent of all the gasoline currently consumed," he says. "If we used all the waste biomass available -- including forestry and agricultural wastes -- we could replace all 130 billion gallons of gasoline we use each year."

The Texas A&M technique also turns agricultural wastes like corn stalks and bagasse residues from sugar processing into high-quality animal feed. Biomass animal feed can replace corn in livestock production, which absorbs more than 85 percent of corn production. That could be a boon to grain-poor nations and a benefit to U.S. ranchers struggling to find low-cost feed for their animals.

The process calls for waste biomass to be treated first with lime to increase its digestibility by microorganisms. A mixed culture of microorganisms then eats the lime?treated biomass, turning it into acids that are neutralized with calcium carbonate to produce calcium acetate, calcium propionate and calcium butyrate. The calcium salts are concentrated and converted into ketones, alcohols and carboxylic acids.

The microorganisms create their own enzymes, which greatly lowers the processing cost when compared to other biomass processes like those based on hydrolyzed cellulose.

The process developed by Holtzapple and his colleagues was licensed in 1995 to Highland Interests for development by its subsidiary Terrabon, headquartered in Bryan, Texas. As a first step toward commercialization, Terrabon is working with the Texas Engineering Experiment Station to develop a pilot plant to prove the family of technologies. After completing the first stage of testing this spring, it will become fully operational in the first half of 2001.

Holtzapple holds six U.S. patents on the biomass technology. Other collaborators on the research were Texas A&M professor emeritus Richard R. Davison of Texas A&M's Department of Chemical Engineering and chemical engineering graduate students Seth Adelson, Susan Domke, Nan Sheng Chang, Shushien Chang, David Gaskin, William Kaar, Champion Lee, Chang Ming Lee, Murlidahar Nagwani, Robert Rapier and Kyle Ross.

The MixAlco research earned Holtzapple and his associates one of five 1996 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards in a program initiated by the Clinton administration and sponsored by the

Environmental Protection Agency, the American Chemical Society, the Council for Chemical Research and industry. Since the award, Holtzapple has been in demand as a speaker, both in the United States and abroad. Several countries have consulted him about planned waste biomass facilities.

A professor of chemical engineering at Texas A&M, Holtzapple has been on the chemical engineering faculty since 1986. He received the bachelor of science at Cornell University and the Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania. An active member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, he has focused on waste biomass research for almost two decades.

Turning waste into society's resources is all part of the solution to maintaining our standard of living while simultaneously reducing the negative impact on the environment, Holtzapple maintains.

"There doesn't have to be a conflict between the environment and economic development," he says. "You can have both."

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WASTE BIOMASS FACTS

· Biomass currently is the fourth largest source of energy in the United States and the world.

· Mixed alcohol fuels ship compatibly with gasoline in pipelines, unlike ethanol mixtures.

· Biomass-produced fuels, animals feeds and industrial chemicals are economically competitive, especially when tipping fees can be earned from accepting wastes. For example:

· A mixed alcohol fuel would sell for 70 cents a gallon today compared to 80-90 cents a gallon for MTBE and $1.10 to $1.20 for ethanol.

· Biomass-derived ketones such as acetone can sell for 65 cents a gallon rather than the current market price of $2 a gallon for ketones from conventional petrochemical technology.

· Carboxylic acids from biomass technology can sell for 10 cents a pound compared to 20 cents a pound for the conventionally produced version.

· Chemicals produced from biomass are all oxygenates, which are difficult to produce from oxygen-free petroleum. Introducing oxygen into petroleum increases risk of explosion, compared to the inherent safety of biomass oxygenates.

· Mixed alcohol fuels can be added directly to motor fuel. They're an alternative oxyenate for making clean-burning fuels and especially attractive in light of the recent California ban on methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE ) that has contaminated ground- and drinking water. · Developing nations--where biomass is generally plentiful--can become more self-sufficient and even repay trade deficits if using organic waste to produce a surplus of fuel, animal feed or industrial chemicals.

· Biomass-derived fuels do not contribute to global warming because the carbon dioxide cycles. The CO2 released to the atmosphere during biomass combustion is offset by the CO2 taken from the atmosphere (through photosynthesis) by the plants used to create the biomass.

· Animal feeds from biomass waste can reduce the need for grain production, which results in soil erosion (averaging over five tons per acres in 1992) and leaching of fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides into groundwater.

NR246, 2/20/2000
979/845-5510