Electrofuels advances reported at U of Wisconsin

October 4, 2012 |

In Wisconsin, a team of researchers led by George Huber — who recently moved from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst to the Wisconsin Energy Institute — a UW-Madison professor of chemical and biological engineering, and his collaborators have demonstrated they can use a proton-exchange-membrane fuel cell to convert the model biomass compound acetone into isopropanol, a chemical compound with a wide variety of pharmaceutical and industrial applications, including as a gasoline additive. The advance paves the way for researchers to convert biomass molecules such as glucose into hexanes, which are significant components of gasoline currently derived by refining crude oil. A fuel cell converts chemical energy into electrical energy, or vice versa. Reactions in a proton-exchange-membrane fuel cell require only water, electricity and the biomass-derived molecule.

Category: Research

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