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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2025

Process and environmental safety of thermochemical conversion of biomass

Biomass presents a promising opportunity for converting waste into valuable energy, fuels, and chemicals through various thermochemical processes, including hydrothermal carbonization, hydrothermal liquefaction, pyrolysis, gasification, and combustion. However, these processes operate under extreme conditions, introducing significant safety hazards that necessitate meticulous management to prevent accidents. This review discusses potential hazards, risk mitigation strategies, and safety management practices, emphasizing the importance of integrated safety measures into the design and operation of these processes. It also highlights the critical need for robust safety engineering and environmental management strategies tailored to each thermo-chemical process. As these processes transition from laboratory to industrial scale, there is an imperative to develop a clear and concise pathway for emerging industries to achieve regulatory compliance, achieve safety certification, and enable effective stewardship of potential fugitive emissions. By addressing safety and environmental concerns, stakeholders can optimize economic benefits, rural development, and achieve sustained domestic energy generation benefits offered by biomass conversion technologies. Further research on plant design optimization, operational safety, environmental evaluation standardization, and innovative waste management solutions will support the safe and effective scaling of these technologies, ultimately contributing to sustainable management and resource recovery.

09 - BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Mechanical separations of corn stover anatomical fractions in an integrated feedstock preprocessing system: An experimental and data-driven modeling study

High variabilities of material attributes in lignocellulosic biomass present risks for biofuel and biochemical productions and must be mitigated via preprocessing. Since almost no mechanical device is originally designed for processing biomass, how to operate existing apparatuses with efficient performance has not been investigated extensively. This work presents a study on an integrated screening and air classification to separate cobs and stalks from husks and leaves in corn stover. Prototype machine learning models were developed to assess the feasibility of predicting the process outcome based on the measurable parameters. The models trained upon limited experimental data rendered decent predictive accuracy of yield and purity. The experimental data and modeling results collectively suggest decreasing throughput leads to a higher purity. To the contrary, if throughput increases, a lower purity is likely. A possible trade-off between yield and purity of the separated streams indicates the need for optimal combinations of feedstock size, moisture, and throughput to achieve optimized separations. The results of this study also suggest the need to further improve model predictability by developing more accurate formulations for physics governing the integrated unit operations. To accomplish this, additional experimental data needs to be generated for model training.

09 - BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2013

NREL Proves Cellulosic Ethanol Can Be Cost Competitive [Fact Sheet]

Ethanol from non-food sources - known as "cellulosic ethanol" - is a near-perfect transportation fuel: it is clean, domestic, abundant, and renewable, and it can potentially replace 30% of the petroleum consumed in the United States, but its relatively high cost has limited its market. That changed in 2012, when the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) demonstrated the technical advances needed to produce cellulosic ethanol at a minimum ethanol selling price of $\$$2.15/gallon (in 2007 dollars). Through a multi-year research project involving private industry, NREL has proven that cellulosic ethanol can be cost competitive with other transportation fuels.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2014

Biodiesel Basics [Fact Sheet]

This fact sheet provides a brief introduction to biodiesel, including a discussion of biodiesel blends, which blends are best for which vehicles, where to buy biodiesel, how biodiesel compares to diesel fuel in terms of performance, how biodiesel performs in cold weather, whether biodiesel use will plug vehicle filters, how long-term biodiesel use may affect engines, biodiesel fuel standards, and whether biodiesel burns cleaner than diesel fuel. The fact sheet also dismisses the use of vegetable oil as a motor fuel.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2012

KIVA Development - 2012

Los Alamos National Laboratory and its collaborators are facilitating engine modeling by improving accuracy of the modeling, and improving the robustness of software. We also continue to improve the physical modeling methods. We are developing and implementing new mathematical algorithms, those which represent the physics within an engine. We provide software that others may use directly or that they may alter with various models e.g., sophisticated chemical kinetics, different turbulent closure methods or other fuel injection systems.

02 PETROLEUM↗
DOE OSTI2012

Inorganic Chemistry in Hydrogen Storage and Biomass Catalysis [Slides]

Making or breaking C-H, B-H, C-C bonds has been at the core of catalysis for many years. Making or breaking these bonds to store or recover energy presents us with fresh challenges, including how to catalyze these transformations in molecular systems that are 'tuned' to minimize energy loss and in molecular and material systems present in biomass. This talk will discuss some challenging transformations in chemical hydrogen storage, and some aspects of the inorganic chemistry we are studying in the development of catalysts for biomass utilization.

08 HYDROGEN↗
DOE OSTI2012

Recycling produced water for algal cultivation for biofuels

Algal growth demands a continuous source of water of appropriate salinity and nutritional content. Fresh water sources are scarce in the deserts of the Southwestern United States, hence, salt water algae species are being investigated as a renewable biofuel source. The use of produced water from oil wells (PW) could offset the demand for fresh water in cultivation. Produced water can contain various concentrations of dissolved solids, metals and organic contaminants and often requires treatment beyond oil/water separation to make it suitable for algae cultivation. The produced water used in this study was taken from an oil well in Jal, New Mexico. An F/2-Si (minus silica) growth media commonly used to cultivate Nannochloropsis salina 1776 (NS 1776) was prepared using the produced water (F/2-Si PW) taking into account the metals and salts already present in the water. NS 1776 was seeded into a bioreactor containing 5L of the (F/2-Si PW) media. After eleven days the optical density at 750 nm (an indicator of algal growth) increased from 0 to 2.52. These results indicate algae are able to grow, though inhibited when compared with non-PW media, in the complex chemical conditions found in produced water. Savings from using nutrients present in the PW, such as P, K, and HCO 3 -1 , results in a 44.38% cost savings over fresh water to mix the F/2-Si media.

02 PETROLEUM↗
DOE OSTI2016

Development of Kinetics and Mathematical Models for High-Pressure Gasification of Lignite-Switchgrass Blends: Cooperative Research and Development Final Report, CRADA Number CRD-11-447

NREL will work with Participant as a subtier partner under DE-FOA-0000240 titled "Co-Production of Power, Fuels, and Chemicals via Coal/Biomass Mixtures." The goal of the project is to determine the gasification characteristics of switchgrass and lignite mixtures and develop kinetic models. NREL will utilize a pressurized thermogravimetric analyzer to measure the reactivity of chars generated in a pressurized entrained-flow reactor at Participant's facilities and to determine the evolution of gaseous species during pyrolysis of switchgrass-lignite mixtures. Mass spectrometry and Fourier-transform infrared analysis will be used to identify and quantify the gaseous species. The results of the project will aid in defining key reactive properties of mixed coal biomass fuels.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Techno-economic and life-cycle analysis of strategies for improving operability and biomass quality in catalytic fast pyrolysis of forest residues

Many of the challenges faced by the first commercial biorefineries were associated with feedstock handling, quality, and cost. Strategies are needed to enable further expansion of biorefineries and meet the growing demand for bio-based fuels and products. Here, we examine 2 key feedstock challenges and mitigation strategies in the context of a catalytic fast pyrolysis (CFP) biorefinery: (1) the operability of the feed system, which may be improved by modifying the minimum particle size fed to the reactor, and (2) the quality of the biomass, which may be improved by employing air classification to remove undesirable material and increase fuel yields. We conduct techno-economic analysis (TEA) and life-cycle analysis for these strategies, employing a discrete event simulation model for biomass preprocessing combined with a series of correlations developed from literature data and a rigorous CFP conversion model. Our results highlight the importance of balancing increased cost and material losses from preprocessing against improved operability and fuel yields. Economics and sustainability were optimized when operating at the lowest minimum particle size, emphasizing the importance of minimizing material losses while maintaining the operability of the process. Economically, additional costs and material losses from air classification could be acceptable due to improved biomass conversion, and an optimum air classification speed was identified; however, the fuel GHG emissions were minimized when air classification was not used. Valorizing material removed during preprocessing as a coproduct could improve economics and sustainability, decreasing the burden of material losses.

09 - BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2016

New Catalyst Reduces Wasted Carbon in Biofuel Process, Lowers Cost

Researchers at NREL recently developed a catalyst formulation that incorporates more hydrogen into the DME-to-high-octane gasoline process, resulting in a higher yield to gasoline-range products. Further, the researchers developed a secondary process that efficiently couples a portion of the gasoline-range product to yield jet/diesel fuels. The modified catalyst doubles the conversion rate of DME, which can be produced from biomass, to the high-octane gasoline product and significantly decreases the formation of wasted byproducts. For the distillate-range product, 80% of the mixture is in line with ASTM standards for use as a jet fuel blendstock. The increased productivity of high-octane gasoline and the development of a value-added distillate blendstock process further improve the economic viability toward commercially implementing this renewable fuels process.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2012

Some General Themes in Catalysis at LANL [Slides]

Some general themes in catalysis at LANL are: (1) Storage and release of energy within chemical bonds (e.g. H 2 storage in and release from covalent bonds, N 2 functionalization, CO 2 functionalization, H 2 oxidation/evolution, O 2 reduction/evolution); (2) Can we control the chemistry of reactive substrates to effect energy relevant transformations in non-traditional media (e.g. can we promote C-C couplings, dehydrations, or hydrogenations in water under relatively mild conditions)? (3) Can we supplant precious metal or rare earth catalysts to effect these transformations, by using earth abundant metals/elements instead? Can we use organocatalysis and circumvent the use of metals completely? (4) Can we improve upon existing rare earth catalyst systems (e.g. in rare earth oxides pertinent to fluid cracking or polymerization) and reduce amounts required for catalytic efficacy? Carbohydrates can be accessed from non-food based biomass sources such as woody residues and switchgrass. After extracted from the plant source, our goal is to upgrade these classes of molecules into useful fuels.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗