Carbon Trust to back pyrolysis oil biofuel project

The Carbon Trust is offering up to £5m in funding to researchers working on technologies that would make it possible to develop second generation biofuels at existing oil refineries.

The government-backed body announced this week that it is seeking applications from research projects for the funding before the 7th of April with a view to awarding the funding this September.

The projects are to focus on the development of a commercially viable pyrolysis oil upgrading process, which could be used to develop a biofuel using many existing oil refinery systems.

Pyrolysis is the process of heating organic material in the absence of oxygen and can be used to create an oil that shares many of the properties of crude.

Robert Trezona, head of research and development at the Carbon Trust, said that the approach has several potential advantages over both existing biofuel refinery processes and alternative means of creating second generation biofuels from food wastes. "The process can be applied to a wide variety of organic material, including feedstocks, food waste and forestry waste," he said. "This gives it an advantage over many of the enzyme based refinery approaches being pioneered in the US which require a lot more molly-coddling and often need different enzymes for different types of biomass."

The Carbon Trust-backed research project is expected to tackle some of the technical problems blocking commercial development of the process, including the issue of removing oxygen from organic material before heating. "It can be done technically, but there is a need to develop an energy efficient means of removing the oxygen on a commercial scale," Trezona said.

The Carbon Trust believes that should these issues be overcome the approach has the potential to generate large quantities of biofuels which, despite the energy involved in the process, should deliver improved carbon savings compared to existing biofuels, while having no impact on agricultural land use.

Trezona said the technology could also attract huge interest from oil majors who regard it as a means of generating biofuel without investing in new refinery facilities. "We'd like to see the oil majors get involved in the research project," he said. "We know there is a lot of interest out there in this approach and we've had informal talks with some oil companies who said they would bite the hand off of the company that can offer them a viable means of generating commercial pyrolysis oil."

He also defended the Carbon Trust's involvement in the biofuel sector, which has faced hefty criticism over its perceived contribution to deforestation and food price inflation. "The fact is there are not many options available for decarbonising transport, particularly in the fields of aviation and shipping, and biofuels are likely to have a role," he explained. "If we are going to continue to use hydrocarbon based fuels we need sustainable alternatives and that is why we are investing to try and accelerate the development of biofuels that can be made from organic waste matter."