Workshop: Developing New Paradigms for Biofuel Separations to Enable an Alternative Fuels Future

对美国来说，转向替代燃料有许多重要的驱动因素。这些措施从减少我们对外国石油进口的依赖，到化石燃料利用推动的气候变化的有害影响，到创造一个新的工业部门(绿色能源)，将为未来的劳动力提供高质量的就业机会。有许多路线被探索和吹捧为化石燃料的替代品，包括风能、太阳能、氢气和核能。更有希望的可能性之一是从非食用作物中开发生物燃料。看来，生物燃料的关键优势之一是可以使用热解、水解、发酵等已知技术来转化生物质。然而，这一领域的关键挑战之一是，这些过程总体上是非选择性的。因此，尽管已有将生物质原料加工成基础产品原料的反应堆技术，但仍有相当大的需要制定改进基础产品原料的方法。从热解/水解产生的蒸气中有选择地去除所需成分(例如糖、糠醛)的能力将是一条将可再生原料混合到现有燃料生产计划中或导致全新燃料生产路线的简单途径。前者是一个合乎逻辑的中间目标，有利于燃料行业实现政府规定的将可再生化合物纳入燃料池的目标。后者代表着让中国摆脱化石燃料的最终目标。基于这几点，人们认为生物燃料的利用将需要新的分离方案来充分发挥其潜力。这次研讨会将有三个主要主题：1.讨论原料加工的最新进展，重点是所产生的生物混合物的性质，特别是与潜在分离相关的性质。2.对液体分离在生物燃料加工中的应用现状进行了讨论。3.总结会议，概述这一领域面临的关键和独特的挑战，为今后的实地工作和目标制定路线图。

1104933ShantzThere are many significant drivers for the United States to shift to alternative fuels. These range from reducing our dependency on foreign imports of oils, to the deleterious effects of climate change that are driven by fossil fuels utilization, to creating a new industrial sector (green energy) that will provide high quality jobs for the future work force. There are many routes being explored and touted as alternatives to fossil fuel, including wind, solar, hydrogen, and nuclear energy. One of the more promising possibilities is the development of biofuels from non-edible crops. It would appear that one of the key advantages of biofuels is that conversion of biomass is possible using known technologies such as pyrolysis, hydrolysis, fermentation etc. However, one of the key challenges in this area is that these processes on whole are nonselective. Thus, while the reactor technology for processing raw biomass into a base product feedstock is available, there will be considerable needs for the development of methods for upgrading the base product feedstock. The ability to selectively remove desirable components (e.g. sugars, furfurals) from streams produced by pyrolysis / hydrolysis would represent a simple route to either blending renewable feedstocks into existing fuel production schemes or lead to whole new routes for fuel production. The former represents a logical intermediate target that would be beneficial to the fuels industry meeting government-mandated targets for integration of renewable compounds into the fuel pool. The latter represents the ultimate goal of moving the country away from fossil fuels. Based on these points, it is believed that new separation schemes will be needed for biofuel utilization to reach its full potential. This workshop will have three major themes: 1. A discussion of the state of the art in feedstock processing, with an emphasis on the nature of the resulting bio-mixtures, particularly focused on properties of relevance for potential separations. 2. A discussion of the current state of liquid separations applied to biofuels processing. 3. A summary session outlining the key and unique challenges facing this area that will lay out a roadmap for future work and goals in the field.