Biomass-derived sugars used to produce gasoline and jet fuel

Virent and Virdia have managed to successfully demonstrate that their deconstruction process generated high-quality sugars from cellulosic biomass, which have been converted to fuel via Virent’s BioForming process.

The biomass-derived sugars have been used to produce gasoline and jet fuel, with the latter recently passing rigorous tests at the US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).

Tim Edwards of the Fuels Branch of the AFRL said: "This fuel passed the most stringent specification tests we could throw at it (such as thermal stability) under some conditions where conventional jet fuels would fail. This fuel is definitely worth further evaluation."

The BioForming platform uses catalytic processes to convert water-soluble oxygenated hydrocarbons derived from biomass to non-oxygenated hydrocarbons that can be used as drop-in compounds in gasoline, jet fuel and diesel fuel. The catalysts and reactor systems are comparable to those found in petrochemical laboratories and petroleum oil refineries.

Philippe Lavielle, Virdia CEO, added that the tests show Virdia’s CASE process delivers high-purity and cost-effective cellulosic sugars that are suitable for jet fuels and other applications.

Posted by Claire Manning