Collegiate Times

The overwhelming and constant increase in gas prices has amplified the attempt to resolve our nation's dependency on foreign oil. To address the problem of foreign oil dependency, researchers have discovered an ethanol-gasoline combination that could treat the necessity of oil as well as develop a solution to produce more cost efficient ethanol.

Y.H. Percival Zhang, assistant professor of biological systems engineering at Virginia Tech, is working in collaboration with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Dartmouth University's Lee Lynd to uncover a cost-effective ethanol pre-treatment process that could eventually break the nation's dependency on foreign oil.

In the 2006 State of the Union address, President Bush aimed to double ethanol production by 2012 and said he wanted to see 75 percent of U.S. consumption of Middle-Eastern oil replaced by bioethanol by 2025. Zhang said that in order to reach this goal, the United States must increase its ethanol production from 30 to 60 billion gallons per year, which would mean utilizing the entire corn plant - leaves, stalks, cobs and all.

Currently, the pretreatment of ethanol is created through the pressing of leftover corn stalks and grains by separating the sugars from the plant cell wall. In order to lower the costs of this expensive process, Zhang and Lynd are in the process of allowing the use of the entire corn plants into ethanol production.

Zhang is looking to reduce the processing costs for the entire process of producing ethanol, increasing the revenues from the main products (sugars for ethanol fermentation), co-products (lignin and acetic acid, for other applications) and reducing the total capital investment.

This pretreatment process also incorporates multiple energy techniques. Instead of the normal heating pressures between 150 to 250 degrees Celsius, Zhang's new treatment will decrease the temperature to 50 degrees Celsius.

Zhang said that an increase in bioethanol use would provide security within the U.S. economy that would complement the oil dependency of the country. Bioethanol production from renewable resources will provide benefits in economy by reducing trade deficits, creating jobs, strengthening agricultural markets and exporting technology.

Also, the implementation of bioethanol use will benefit national security through the reduction of national energy reliance. Bioethanol use seeks to improve the environment by eliminating carbon monoxide emissions.

?In a word, making the whole process becomes profitable. For engineering, we always talk about the economical possibility - money. For scientist, they talk about the implementation possibility,? Zhang said.

Zhang said that the study requires between $1-$2 million for the bench size, $10-$20 million for the pilot plants and $500 million-$1 billion per biorefinery for the final commercialization.

Zhang hopes that the study will start a new wave of lignocellulose pre-treatment to help promote societal issues revolving around ethanol use.

?Based on this new idea, commercialization of bioethanol and bio based products industries will be the final goal,? Zhang said.

Zhang and his colleagues have presented their research to the 231st American Chemical Society National and will present it in the 28th Biomass Symposium for Fuel and Chemicals.