ExxonMobil establishes advanced biofuels program at Iowa State; focus on biomass pyrolysis
13 October 2014
ExxonMobil Corporation is establishing an advanced biofuels research program at Iowa State University. The $1-million ExxonMobil Biofuels Program will initially focus on two research projects related to the fast pyrolysis of biomass to produce liquid bio-oil, which can then be upgraded into transportation fuels.
Iowa State researchers have been studying fast pyrolysis for more than 15 years and have recently upgraded a fast pyrolysis pilot plant at the university’s BioCentury Research Farm.
The ExxonMobil Biofuels Program at Iowa State University focuses on fundamental scientific and engineering questions about the chemical and physical processes that occur during the pyrolysis of biomass.
—Professor Robert C. Brown, director of the new research program
The ExxonMobil projects will be led by four researchers:
Brown, an Anson Marston Distinguished Professor in Engineering, the Gary and Donna Hoover Chair in Mechanical Engineering and director of Iowa State’s Bioeconomy Institute and Terry Meyer, an associate professor of mechanical engineering, will study fundamentals of pyrolysis.
Brent Shanks, the Mike and Jean Steffenson Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering and director of the National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center for Biorenewable Chemicals, and Xianglan Bai, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, will study processes that influence bio-oil stability and quality.
This is probably fraud to acquire patents. This is done by the researchers, the university and exxon mobil. Only one million, this is few for exxon mobil and they don't need at all to do costly pyrolysis of biomass to produce fuel as they extract petrol, they transport it and refine it then they further transport it to a retail station and they sell it to consumers. In all of these operations they can make the profit appear anywhere, even in another abroad obscure company where there is less income tax, especially for petrol extraction and transport.
Don't ever think of fueling your gasoline car with less costly gasoline made with this biomass pyrolysis method.
At best there will be some gasoline but at the same price as it is exxon that will sell it at their stations or at concurrent stations and the only advantage for exxon is that they will receive subsidises or tax break for that product so they might increase their profits that follow by the way directly opec profits, when opec profits are climbing than exxon profits are following them and are clinbing too. When opec profits are shrinking then exxon profits are shrinking them too. Why are they calling them foreign hostile contries in their pr, it's because they want a bigger market share of it to further increase the price some more and sell it to you and say how these chaps living outside of u.s.a are awful.
Posted by: gorr | 13 October 2014 at 02:36 PM
The $1-million ExxonMobil Biofuels Program
really...
Posted by: SJC | 13 October 2014 at 06:23 PM
It makes sense to develop cheaper and more efficient methods of producing oil from waste biomass in combination with H2 from solar and wind power. This will someday replace petroleum, and Iowa will become the capital of Saudi America. The MidWest, with abundance of waste biomass and solar and wind energy, will some day supply America with all quantity of fuels needed, from renewable sources without any more drilling nor fracking!
Posted by: Roger Pham | 13 October 2014 at 07:08 PM