EAPSI: The Feasibility of Utilizing Energy Crop Agave for Biofuel Production

EAPSI：利用能源作物龙舌兰生产生物燃料的可行性

• 批准号: 1515599
• 负责人: May-Ling Lu
• 金额: $ 0.51万
• 依托单位: Lu May-Ling
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Fellowship Award
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-06-01 至 2016-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1515599&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: EAPSI; Feasibility; Utilizing; Energy; Crop

Biofuel derived from non-food sources, such as fibrous organic wastes and energy crops, play an important role in fostering a sustainable, greener, and more secure energy future. High economic costs, however, have hindered the widespread utilization of such biomass-based fuels. This EAPSI project will seek to address the commercialization obstacle by studying the biofuel potential of agave, a drought-tolerant plant species with low recalcitrance, two features conducive to the lowering of biofuel processing costs. As one of the few countries that are invested in agave as an energy crop, Australia has much expertise to provide in assessing an important aspect of the processing cost: the feedstock value. Consequently, this project is a collaborative endeavor with Dr. Daniel Tan, Associate Professor in Agronomy at the University of Sydney, who is at the vanguard in developing agave plantations in Australia. This project will rely on techno-economic analysis to evaluate the biofuel potential of agave. The analysis will utilize actual feedstock costs associated with the cultivation of agave as an energy crop. In addition, a biochemical process without pretreatment would be used to model the conversion step. An economic evaluation combining actual feedstock costs with a simplified process requiring no pretreatment will furnish important insights into the potential of agave as a biorefinery feedstock. An analysis that leads to a bioethanol minimum selling price that is competitive with fossil fuel will not only boost the prospect of agave as feedstock candidate, but more importantly, it could potentially result in higher production of biofuel, which would lead to a more promising energy future. This NSF EAPSI award supports the research of a U.S. graduate student and is funded in collaboration with the Australian Academy of Science.

来自非粮食来源的生物燃料，如纤维有机废物和能源作物，在促进可持续、更绿色和更安全的能源未来方面发挥着重要作用。然而，高昂的经济成本阻碍了这种生物质燃料的广泛使用。该EAPSI项目将寻求通过研究龙舌兰的生物燃料潜力来解决商业化障碍，龙舌兰是一种抗旱性低的植物物种，这两个特征有助于降低生物燃料加工成本。作为少数几个将龙舌兰作为一种能源作物进行投资的国家之一，澳大利亚在评估加工成本的一个重要方面：原料价值方面可以提供很多专业知识。因此，这个项目是与悉尼大学农学副教授Daniel Tan博士的合作努力，Daniel Tan博士是开发澳大利亚龙舌兰种植园的先锋。该项目将依靠技术经济分析来评估龙舌兰的生物燃料潜力。该分析将利用与种植龙舌兰相关的实际原料成本作为一种能源作物。此外，将使用没有预处理的生化过程来模拟转化步骤。将实际原料成本与不需要预处理的简化工艺相结合的经济评估将为龙舌兰作为生物精炼原料的潜力提供重要的见解。分析得出与化石燃料具有竞争力的生物乙醇最低销售价格，不仅会增加龙舌兰作为原料候选的前景，更重要的是，它可能会导致生物燃料的更高产量，这将带来更有前景的能源未来。该NSF EAPSI奖项支持一名美国研究生的研究，并与澳大利亚科学院合作提供资金。