University of Illinois researchers develop way of using glycerol to reduce energy consumption of waste-based biofuel production

In Illinois, University of Illinois chemical engineers have assessed the technical and economic feasibility of a new electrolysis technology that uses a cheap biofuel byproduct to reduce the energy consumption of the waste-to-value process by 53 percent.

The new findings are published in the journal Nature Energy. The new study proposes glycerol—an organic byproduct of sugar cane biofuel production that requires less energy to oxidize—as an alternative to the energy-intensive oxygen-producing step.

To test if the new electrolysis technique has the potential to push the full CO2 conversion process to a carbon neutral or negative budget, the researchers examined the cost and energy consumption for the production cycle of the waste-to-value process. The four-step cycle includes the capture of industrial CO2 waste gas, the input of electricity, the new