Tactical Biorefinery for Forward Fuel Production

This proposal is directed to the development of a process that utilizes this advanced ethanol-producing technology synergistically coupled to a low severity biomass pretreatment and a novel method of ethanol recovery and purification that will be capable of utilizing a wide variety of waste materials on a small scale of operation. Combining these technologies for ethanol production/recovery with new advances in combustion of biomass residues and plastics in biomass boilers will enable the development of bio-refineries that have several advantages over existing technology, including: 1) reduced chemical and energy requirements for biomass pretreatment, 2) reduced enzyme requirements for cellulose conversion, 3) replacement of traditional distillation recovery processes with an advanced membrane separations technology, and 4) incorporation of waste plastics into a biomass boiler for energy production. If successful, this approach would be a significant step toward the development of small, skid-mounted, mobile facilities would product liquid fuel, steam and electricity and meet the Department of Defense needs for a Tactical Bio-refinery.