News & Updates

Socio-environmental and land-use impacts of double-cropped maize ethanol in Brazil

Abstract: Agricultural intensification, and particularly double cropping, has been suggested as a practical strategy to reconcile biofuel feedstock production with other land-use priorities. Here we assess ethanol production under conditions representative of current practice in the west central region of Brazil: maize grown as a second crop with soybean on land that formerly grew a single soybean crop, and energy processed from a combined heat and power plant using plantation-grown eucalyptus chips.

Technoeconomic and life-cycle analysis of single-step catalytic conversion of wet ethanol into fungible fuel blendstocks

Abstract: Technoeconomic and life-cycle analyses are presented for catalytic conversion of ethanol to fungible hydrocarbon fuel blendstocks, informed by advances in catalyst and process development. Whereas prior work toward this end focused on 3-step processes featuring dehydration, oligomerization, and hydrogenation, the consolidated alcohol dehydration and oligomerization (CADO) approach described here results in 1-step conversion of wet ethanol vapor (40 wt% in water) to hydrocarbons and water over a metal-modified zeolite catalyst.