A new, renewable, drop-in, waste-based fuel emerges, competitive with $30 oil

Another application for ionic liquids

We’ve been reporting on these for pretreatment for cellulosic ethanol. This is potentially an advance.

Next steps

The project aims to begin scale-up work at the Advanced Biofuels Process Demonstration Unit at the Berkeley Lab.

The bottom line

It’s still in the lab, but who could resist a story line of a process that produces a drop-in gasoline blendstock from agricultural wastes that competes on cost with $27 oil.

We’ll be looking for an industrial process to develop from a bench-scale patent app. And, for validation of the yield claims. And, for validation that the fuel has a path to becoming an approved blendstock.

And we’ll look forward to comments from the Digesterati on the promise of, the pitfalls facing, and the challenges associated with this technological thrust.