Reducing Cost of Cellulosic Jet Fuel Made from Woody Biomass

Our research is focused on developing and scaling up techniques to divert construction anddemolition debris wood waste (C&D) from landfills and re-use it as a feedstock to make sustainableaviation fuel and green hydrogen.This Phase II follow-on research will focus on a ten-fold scale-up gasification trial on actual C&Dwood waste taking it from a bench-scale reactor test to an integrated laboratory system includinggas cleanup all the way to finished hydrogen.The research will also include C&D waste pre- processing trials comercial plant design feasibility engineering and associated cost-benefitanalyses in our technoeconomic model for a commercial-scale plant.The physical trial will look atsome integrated system tradeoffs between cost complexity and catalyst poisoning from key C&Dcontaminants like arsenic from copper chromated arsenate-treated lumber.The market demand for this capability comes from both the C&D waste industry and fromcommercial aviation. Tthe U.S. construction industry generates hundreds of millions of tons ofwaste wood each year but most of this wood is contaminated with paints resins and heavy metalsfrom treated lumber making this material unacceptable for recycling or disposal in anything otherthan dedicated C&D landfills.At the same time U.S. commercial airlines have been seekinglower-cost and lower-greenhouse gas fuel an emphasis strong enough to persist despite the extremechallenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the airline industry.Airlineshave demonstrated the technical feasibility of renewable jet fuel in thousands of flights over thepast ten years but to date no distillate fuel made from woody biomass has achieved commercialviability due to very high capital and feedstock costs.With a successful scaled-up trial from this research we will continue to develop the engineeringand techniques for a unique fuel refining capability that can handle the contaminants in urban woodwaste and C& D debris wood and convert it to lower-cost jet fuel.