The NSF Sustainable Energy pathways (SEP) Program, under the umbrella of the NSF Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability (SEES) initiative, will support the research program of Prof. David Shonnard and co-workers at Michigan Technological University. Drop-in, renewable replacements for petroleum-based liquid transportation fuels is a national strategic goal for energy security. The four-year Wood to Wheels (W2W) SEP project will achieve this goal by conducting transformative, multidisciplinary, comprehensive, and integrated research in the area of forest-based infrastructure-compatible liquid biofuel for vehicular transportation. Hypothesis-driven research is to be organized into three main thrusts plus a cross-cutting thrust integration activity; 1) Sustainable Forest Systems, 2) Two-Stage Torrefaction/Pyrolysis-Based Conversion Processes, 3) Energy Utilization of Advanced Biofuels, and 4) Integrated Sustainability Assessment and Decision Making. The Sustainable Forest Systems research thrust will feature research in forest productivity modeling, ecosystem nutrition and productivity, and genomics-guided feedstock (poplar) improvement. The Conversion Processes thrust will investigate a novel two-stage torrefaction and pyrolysis based processing strategy to prepare an improved bio-oil for multi-functional catalytic upgrading to a hydrocarbon green diesel fuel product. The Energy Utilization thrust will incorporate a surrogate fuels approach to determine the relationship between fuel component classes and combustion characteristics, and to provide feedback to the Conversion thrust team on targets for optimal GD composition. The Sustainability Assessment thrust will produce decision support tools including indicator sets, perform process simulation and optimization, technoeconomic analyses, life cycle assessments, greenhouse gas analyses, and energy balances.
The goal of this project is to achieve scientific and engineering breakthroughs for production of an infrastructure-compatible green diesel (GD) with system-wide benefits; such as clean combustion in engines (low particulates and NOx), reduced life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions compared to fossil fuel, low cost per gallon, rural job creation, increased energy independence, high productivity per acre of forest biomass, plant genotypes with favorable composition for conversion, and engines optimized to use the prescribed component makeup of the GD. Researchers, including 11 faculty, 7 PhD students, and one postdoc from Forestry, Social Sciences, Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, will develop new knowledge about complex coupled natural/industrial/societal systems. This SEP project will create a diverse highly skilled biofuels workforce with the technical research experiences and broad sustainability education needed to support a renewable transportation fuels industry. The research team will interact with local communities to gain information on what they believe to be important measures of sustainability in their communities. Through this interaction, these communities will receive education on biofuel production technologies and what sustainability means, how it can be measured, and whether trade-offs among goals are necessary to institute sustainable biofuel systems in their area. The team will implement a W2W SEP diversity plan to: (1) recruit women, under-represented minorities, and persons with disabilities as graduate students, and (2) implement integrated practices that enable the academic and professional success of the SEP students and postdoc. Results from the Sustainability Assessments research thrust will be fed back to the other thrust teams in order to guide research and overcome sustainability challenges that arise at key processing stages along the life cycle.
The project will contribute to the development of biomass-based biofuel production in the US in order to displace nearly all imported petroleum, to support domestic jobs, and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Project deliverables will help establish a new forest-based biofuels industry featuring high productivity forest energy crops, sustainable forest management practices, catalysts and process technologies, innovations in engine systems, sustainable decision-making databases, and analysis methods/software tools.
