Princeton researchers use catalytic hydropyrolysis to create drop-in fuels

In New Jersey, researchers from Princeton’s Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment evaluated a method that creates fuel from wood residues, sawdust and branches. The method, called catalytic hydropyrolysis, could use the refining and distribution systems now used for gasoline to create a fuel that would work in modern engines.

In a paper published this spring in the journal Sustainable Energy & Fuels, researchers present designs of processes and comprehensive assessments of fuels production based on catalytic hydropyrolysis, a technique being developed by other researchers. The new technique creates combustible oil by heating biomass in the absence of oxygen. They designed systems that could create a zero-carbon vehicle fuel, meaning that creating and burning it results in no net emission of carbon. Integrating carbon-capture technology into some of the designs, they found it could actually pull carbon out of the atmosphere while creating fuel.

However, the researchers said there are still questions about whether the technique could scale to an industrial level and about whether it could economically compete with oil. Commercial-scale demonstrations would be needed to answer the question of scale, while the economic question depends on the difficult-to-predict price of crude oil.