Honeywell-owned UOP announced that it has been selected for negotiation of a $25 million award from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to build a demonstration unit in Hawaii to convert cellulosic biomass into green transportation fuels.

The plant, which will be built at the Tesoro's refinery in Kapolei, Hawaii, is expected to start up in 2014. If successful and fully implemented on a global scale, the new technology has the potential to supplement the existing supply of petroleum-based fuels, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 70% (compared to petroleum-based fuels).

The demonstration unit will employ the Ensyn-developed RTP (rapid thermal processing) technology, which rapidly heats biomass at ambient pressure to generate high yields of pourable, liquid pyrolysis oil. The pyrolysis oil will then be upgraded to green transport fuels using technology developed by Honeywell's UOP, working with DOE, the DOE's National Renewable Energy Lab and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL).

A range of cellulosic feedstocks used in the demonstration unit, including selected waste agriculture products, pulp, paper, woody biomass, algae and dedicated energy crops like switchgrass and high-biomass sorghum will be provided by Ceres, Cargill, Grays Harbor Paper, HR BioPetroleum, Targeted Growth, Imperium Renewables and Mesa Engineering. The biofuel produced will be analyzed by a panel of petroleum refiners including Tesoro, CountryMark, Kern Oil and Refining and evaluated for end-use by Honeywell, General Motors and Boeing. Life Cycle Analysis will be performed by leading research university Michigan Tech University.

[source: UOP]