Waste Could Generate Up to 7 Percent of Electricity in Spain

ScienceDaily (Mar. 5, 2010) Researchers from the University of Zaragoza (UNIZAR) have calculated the energy and economic potential of urban solid waste, sludge from water treatment plants and livestock slurry for generating electricity in Spain. These residues are alternative sources of renewable energy, which are more environmentally friendly and, in the case of solid urban waste, more cost effective.

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Waste Waste management Hazardous waste Power station

Using waste to generate electricity has economic and environmental advantages. "It gives added value to waste, because it can be seen as a type of fuel with zero cost, or even a negative cost if taxes are paid to collect it," says Norberto Fueyo, lead author of the study and a researcher at the Fluid Mechanics Group of the UNIZAR. According to the researcher, generating electricity from waste avoids "pernicious" impacts. Waste in landfill sites releases methane and other polluting gases, so incinerating solid urban waste will reduce the volume of waste that reaches the landfill sites in the first places, as well as the implicit risks of landfills themselves (possible emission of methane into the atmosphere).

The study, published in the latest issue of the journal Renewable Energy, has shown that waste in Spain could generate between 8.13 and 20.95 TWh (terawatt hours). "This electricity generation was 7.2% of electricity demand in 2008," says Fueyo. The researchers stress that the amount of methane generated from different kinds of residues is equivalent to 7.6% of gas consumption in 2008. In terms of the economic cost, "solid urban waste is the most cost-effective," according to the researcher, because local authorities carry out the waste collection and local inhabitants pay for it. Since the waste is transported to large landfill sites or waste treatment plants, installing electricity generation systems "could take advantage of economies of scale due to the large volumes involved." Cost depends on the heat generated According to the study, incineration of waste and degasification of landfill sites are the electricity generation technologies with lowest financial cost. Producing electric energy through anaerobic digestion (a biological process in which organic matter decomposes into biogas in the absence of oxygen and through the action of a group of specific bacteria) is much more expensive. "However, its profitability relies on being able to get value out of the heat generated during the process," explains Fueyo, who says this technique is "not competitive, but makes use of the heat to offset the costs of generation." However, the researchers point out that "directly applying this waste to agricultural land as fertiliser could contaminate groundwater with nitrates." In order to evaluate the potential and the cost of generating electricity, the researchers applied the methodology in municipal areas (in the case of solid urban waste and sludge from water treatment plants) and regional areas (for livestock slurry) throughout the whole of Spain. The work shows that the centre and south of the Iberian Peninsula, the Balearic and Canary Islands have the "greatest interest" in putting technologies into place to use solid urban waste. In terms of using water treatment plant sludge, the coastal areas of Galicia. Valencia and Alicante, as well as central and southern Spain, were also areas of interest. The study also shows that certain areas of Aragon, Castilla-La-Mancha, Castilla-y-Len, Extremadura, Galicia and Andalusia "would be effective" for using livestock slurry. The EU 20-20-20 package The research into electricity generation comes in response to the European Union (EU) objective to fulfil the 20-20-20 package for the year 2020, in other words to substitute 20% of the total energy consumed in Spain for energy from renewable resources, reduce CO2 emissions by 20% in comparison with 1990 figures, increase biofuels used in transport by 10%, and achieve energy savings of 20%. "For Spain, each one of these targets alone is a challenge, which becomes much bigger when they are all taken together," underscores the scientist.

Norberto Fueyo says the most problematic objective is that relating to increasing the amount of biofuels used in transport by 10%. "It is not achievable and is socially and environmentally questionable, because of the amount of land it requires and because it means using foodstuffs to produce fuel." Even if the figure of 10% of biofuels in transport is achieved, "there will need to be an increase of around 45% in the contribution of renewables (including hydroelectric energy) to electricity generation in order to achieve a figure of 20% of renewable energy within total consumption," the expert says. The scientist adds that, in order to achieve the objective, it will be "essential" to promote energy saving and efficiency "and consider all possible sources of renewable energy, including waste."

New Process Yields High-Energy-Density, Plant-Based Transportation Fuel

ScienceDaily (Feb. 28, 2010) A team of University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers has developed a highly efficient, environmentally friendly process that selectively converts gammavalerolactone, a biomass derivative, into the chemical equivalent of jet fuel.

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Catalysis Biomass Propellant Nitrogen oxide

The simple process preserves about 95 percent of the energy from the original biomass, requires little hydrogen input, and captures carbon dioxide under high pressure for future beneficial use. With James Dumesic, Steenbock Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at UWMadison, postdoctoral researchers Jesse Bond and David Martin Alonso, and graduate students Dong Wang and Ryan West published details of the advance in the Feb. 26 edition of the journal Science. Much of the Dumesic group's previous research of using cellulosic biomass for biofuels has focused on processes that convert abundant plant-based sugars into transportation fuels. However, in previously studied conversion methods, sugar molecules frequently degrade to form levulinic acid and formic acid -- two products the previous methods couldn't readily transform into high-energy liquid fuels. The team's new method exploits sugar's tendency to degrade. "Instead of trying to fight the degradation, we started with levulinic acid and formic acid and tried to see what we could do using that as a platform," says Dumesic. In the presence of metal catalysts, the two acids react to form gamma-valerolactone, or GVL, which now is manufactured in small quantities as an herbal food and perfume additive. Using laboratory-scale equipment and stable, inexpensive catalysts, Dumesic's group converts aqueous solutions of GVL into jet fuel. "It really is very simple," says Bond, of the two-step catalytic process. "We can pull off these two catalytic stages, as well as the requisite separation steps, in series, with basic equipment. With very minimal processing, we can produce a pure stream of jet-fuel-range alkenes and a fairly pure stream of carbon dioxide." While biofuels such as ethanol are becoming more popular as blending agents in automobile fuels, they have limitations for use in jet fuel because of their low energy density. And, given present internal combustion engine designs, conventional biofuels cannot fully replace petroleum-derived hydrocarbons. "The hydrocarbons produced from GVL in this new process are chemically equivalent to those used in the present infrastructure," says Alonso. "The product we make is ready for the jet fuel application and can be added to existing hydrocarbon blends, as needed, to meet specs." The biggest barrier to implementing the renewable fuel is the cost of GVL. Until now, says Dumesic, there has not been an incentive to mass-produce the compound. "The bottleneck in having the fuel ready for prime time is the availability of cost-effective GVL," he says. Now that they have demonstrated the process for converting GVL to transportation fuel, Dumesic and his students are developing more efficient methods for making GVL from biomass sources such as wood, corn stover, switchgrass and others. "Once the GVL is made effectively, I think this is an excellent way to convert it to jet fuel," he says.

Green Diesel: New Process Makes Liquid Transportation Fuel From Plants
ScienceDaily (June 6, 2005) University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Engineering researchers have discovered a new way to make a diesel-like liquid fuel from carbohydrates commonly found in plants.

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Carbohydrate Hydrocarbon Biomass Ethanol fuel

Reporting in the June 3 issue of the journal Science, Chemical and Biological Engineering graduate students George Huber, Juben Chheda, Chris Barrett and Steenbock Professor James Dumesic detail a four-phase catalytic reactor in which corn and other biomass-derived carbohydrates can be converted to sulfur-free liquid alkanes resulting in an ideal additive for diesel transportation fuel. "It's a very efficient process," says Huber. "The fuel produced contains 90 percent of the energy found in the carbohydrate and hydrogen feed. If you look at a carbohydrate source such as corn, our new process has the potential to creates twice the energy as is created in using corn to make ethanol." About 67 percent of the energy required to make ethanol is consumed in fermenting and distilling corn. As a result, ethanol production creates 1.1 units of energy for every unit of energy consumed. In the UW-Madison process, the desired alkanes spontaneously separate from water. No additional heating or distillation is required. The result is the creation of 2.2 units of energy for every unit of energy consumed in energy production.

"The fuel we're making stores a considerable amount of hydrogen," says Dumesic. "Each molecule of hydrogen is used to convert each carbon atom in the carbohydrate reactant to an alkane. It's a very high yield. We don't lose a lot of carbon. The carbon acts as an effective energy carrier for transportation vehicles. It's not unlike the way our own bodies use carbohydrates to store energy." About 75 percent of the dry weight of herbaceous and woody biomass is composed of carbohydrates. Because the UW-Madison process works with a range of carbohydrates, a wide range of plants, and more parts of the plant, can be consumed to make fuel. "The current delivered cost of biomass is comparable or even cheaper than petroleum-based feedstock on an energy basis," Huber says. "This is one step in figuring out how to efficiently use our biomass resources."

Hydrogen Fuel From Woodchips And Other Non-Food Sources

ScienceDaily (Feb. 17, 2009) Tomorrow's fuel-cell vehicles may be powered by enzymes that consume cellulose from woodchips or grass and exhale hydrogen.

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Biomass Ethanol fuel Fuel cell Distributed generation

Researchers at Virginia Tech, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), and the University of Georgia have produced hydrogen gas pure enough to power a fuel cell by mixing 14 enzymes,

one coenzyme, cellulosic materials from nonfood sources, and water heated to about 90 degrees (32 degrees Celsius). The group announced three advances from their "one pot" process: 1) a novel combination of enzymes, 2) an increased hydrogen generation rate -- to as fast as natural hydrogen fermentation, and 3) a chemical energy output greater than the chemical energy stored in sugars the highest hydrogen yield reported from cellulosic materials. "In addition to converting the chemical energy from the sugar, the process also converts the low-temperature thermal energy into high-quality hydrogen energy like Prometheus stealing fire," said Percival Zhang, assistant professor of biological systems engineering in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Virginia Tech. "It is exciting because using cellulose instead of starch expands the renewable resource for producing hydrogen to include biomass," said Jonathan Mielenz, leader of the Bioconversion Science and Technology Group at ORNL. The researchers used cellulosic materials isolated from wood chips, but crop waste or switchgrass could also be used. "If a small fraction 2 or 3 percent of yearly biomass production were used for sugar-to-hydrogen fuel cells for transportation, we could reach transportation fuel independence," Zhang said. (He added that the 3 percent figure is for global transportation needs. The U.S. would actually need to convert about 10 percent of biomass which would be 1.3 billion tons of usable biomass). The research is supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research; Zhang's DuPont Young Professor Award, and the U.S. Department of Energy.

Silicon Nanotubes For Hydrogen Storage In Fuel Cell Vehicles

ScienceDaily (Apr. 24, 2008) After powering the micro-electronics revolution, silicon could carve out an important new role in speeding the debut of ultra-clean fuel cell vehicles powered by hydrogen, researchers in China suggest. Their calculations show for the first time that silicon nanotubes can store hydrogen more efficiently than their carbon nanotube counterparts.

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Alternative Fuels Nanotechnology Fuel Cells Organic Chemistry Vehicles Electronics

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Nanowire Carbon nanotube Chemical compound Hydrocarbon

Dapeng Cao and colleagues note that researchers have focused on the potential use of carbon nanotubes for storing hydrogen in fuel cell vehicles for years. Despite nanotubes' great promise, they have been unable to meet the hydrogen storage goals proposed by the U.S. Department of Energy for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. A more efficient material for hydrogen storage is needed, scientists say. In the study, Cao's group used powerful molecular modeling tools to compare the hydrogen storage capacities of newly developed silicon nanotubes to carbon nanotubes. They found that, in theory, silicon nanotubes can absorb hydrogen molecules more efficiently than carbon nanotubes under normal fuel cell operating conditions. The calculations pave the way for tests to determine whether silicon nanotubes can meet government standards for hydrogen storage, the scientists note. The article "Silicon Nanotube as a Promising Candidate for Hydrogen Storage: From the First Principle Calculations to Grand Canonical Monte Carlo Simulations" will appear in the April 24 issue of ACS' Journal of Physical Chemistry C.

Wiring Up' Enzymes For Producing Hydrogen In Fuel Cells

ScienceDaily (Nov. 21, 2007) Researchers in Colorado are reporting the first successful "wiring up" of hydrogenase enzymes. Those much-heralded proteins are envisioned as stars in a future hydrogen economy where they may serve as catalysts for hydrogen production and oxidation in fuel cells.

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Alternative Fuels Electricity Fuel Cells Energy Technology Electronics Batteries

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Catalysis Metal Carbon nanotube Nanowire

Their report describes a successful electrical connection between a carbon nanotube and hydrogenase. In the new study, Michael J. Heben, Paul W. King, and colleagues explain that bacterial enzymes called hydrogenases show promise as powerful catalysts for using hydrogen in fuel cells, which can produce electricity with virtually no pollution for motor vehicles, portable electronics, and other devices. However, scientists report difficulty incorporating these enzymes into electrical devices because the enzymes do not form good electrical connections with fuel cell components. Currently, precious metals, such as platinum, are typically needed to perform this catalysis. The researchers combined hydrogenase enzymes with carbon nanotubes, submicroscopic strands of pure carbon that are excellent electrical conductors. In laboratory studies, the researchers demonstrated that a good electrical connection was established using photoluminescence spectroscopy measurements. These new "biohybrid" conjugates could reduce the cost of fuel cells by reducing or eliminating the need for platinum and other costly metal components, they say. The journal article, "Wiring-Up Hydrogenase with Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes" is scheduled for the Nov. issue of ACS' Nano Letters.