DOE awards universities funding to boost biofuel performance in engines

In Washington, the DOE announced up to $7 million for eight universities to accelerate the introduction of affordable, scalable, and sustainable high-performance fuels for use in high-efficiency, low-emission engines. Under the Co-Optimization of Fuels and Engines (Co-Optima) initiative, DOE’s Bioenergy Technologies Office and Vehicle Technologies Office are collaborating to maximize energy savings and on-road vehicle performance, while dramatically reducing transportation-related petroleum consumption and harmful emissions.

Those projects selected dealing with bioenergy are:

Cornell University (Ithaca, New York): Cornell University, in partnership with the University of California, San Diego, will examine the combustion characteristics of several diesel/biofuel blends. This will provide the information needed to understand how these blends burn compared to traditional petroleum-based fuels to help design cleaner, more efficient combustion engines.

  University of Alabama (Tuscaloosa, Alabama): The University of Alabama will examine the combustion properties of biofuels and blends using advanced diagnostic techniques under realistic advanced compression ignition (ACI) engine conditions. ACI engines can deliver both high efficiencies and low emissions. The goal is to create a model to predict combustion properties of various fuel blends to help optimize its use in ACI engines.

  Louisiana State University (Baton Rouge, Louisiana): Louisiana State University, along with partners Texas A&M and University of Connecticut, will develop a method that efficiently characterizes alternative fuel candidates along with associated models and metrics for predicted engine performance.

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, Massachusetts): Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in partnership with University of Central Florida, will develop detailed kinetic models for several biofuels using an advanced computational approach. The project will construct computer models to predict the combustion chemistry of proposed biofuels, which can then be used to determine which of the proposed fuels will have high performance in advanced engines.

  Yale University (New Haven, Connecticut): Yale University, along with the Pennsylvania State University, will measure sooting tendencies of various biofuels and develop emission indices relevant to real engines. This will enable the selection of biomass-derived fuels that minimize soot emissions in next generation engines.