Enerkem and NREL make high octane biofuel breakthrough
March 21, 2018
| Meghan Sapp
The chemical engineering expertise at Enerkem’s Innovation Centre in Westbury, Quebec, allowed the company to successfully develop a process that uses its proprietary waste-to-biofuel technology to produce a new biofuel with a Research Octane Number (RON) of up to 112. This is 20 points higher than the average octane rating found in regular motor gasoline. By using bio-dimethyl ether (Bio-DME), a product derived from Enerkem’s biomethanol, combined with a DME-to-high-octane-gasoline catalyst developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in the United States, the Enerkem-NREL team were the first to demonstrate at pilot scale the production of an alternative fuel rich in paraffins.
Category: Research