Dear Mr. Addison, Can you please throw some more light on the process. It says: "You just dissolve sugar in water, then add a little acid and bring it to a boil, and a half hour later, this fuel is floating in water," It does not mention the use of sawdust or wood. Which acid and in what concentration is to be added? Please give, if possible some more accurate details. The URL mentioned is not accessible.
Y. K. Jain Keith Addison wrote: > http://www.oaoa.com/news/nw071102a.htm > OA Online News > The future of fuel? > > Odessa professor's process of turning plants into fuel shows great promise. > > Thursday July 11, 2002 > > By Julie Breaux > Odessa American > > Chemistry professor Mike Robinson holds up a small, glass bottle > containing a scant fourth-cup of liquid and a world of possibilities. > The liquid is jet fuel, plain and simple. But what makes it so > special and of interest to major energy producers is that Robinson > can make it in about 30 minutes using only sawdust, sugar water, heat > and an acid. No eons-old fossil fuels, no drilling rigs necessary in > a deceptively simple process, he says. > "You just dissolve sugar in water, then add a little acid and bring > it to a boil, and a half hour later, this fuel is floating in water," > said Robinson, a longtime organic chemistry professor at the > University of Texas of the Permian Basin. "To a novice watching that > happen, it's just that magical." > Robinson has been rehearsing his scientifically based magic show for > the past 30-plus years. From the late 1970s to 1990, Robinson worked > to unlock the mystery of converting hard and soft woods, grasses and > other starchy foodstuffs into a hydrocarbon-based fuel. > Robinson remembers when the idea first came to him. It was 1978, and > Americans were paying record high prices for fuel after the > Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries had cut off crude > shipments to the United States. Robinson used the OPEC embargo to > challenge his young chemistry students at UTPB to use their knowledge > to find solutions to modern-day problems. He said he asked them to > look at more economical means of converting plant sugars into fuel. > At the time, the only manmade, plant-based fuel was ethanol, an > alcohol-based fuel made from corn. Robinson believed converting plant > sugars into hydrocarbons was more economical and efficient. > Unfortunately, none of his students bit, but Robinson did, returning > to his office from class that day, unable to get the idea out of his > mind. > "The more I thought about it, the more I worked on it, the more > interesting it became, and, in fact, no one had done it," he said. > After years of research and experimentation at UTPB, Robinson's big > breakthrough came in 1990 when the university purchased a gas > chromatograph-mass spectrometer. The GC-MS allowed Robinson to > analyze the byproducts of his lab experiments molecule by molecule. > "It turns out when we first started we were just trying to repeat > some of the chemical reactions found in the literature, and then > serendipity happened," he said. > Through gas chromatography, Robinson finally saw the years of > fits-and-starts research pay off when he discovered one of his > chemical conversion recipes had yielded hydrocarbon-based jet fuel, > the only one of its kind in the world, he said. > The University of Texas System now owns the patent to the jet fuel, > which was proven compatible with the gasoline engine in 1996 during > field tests conducted by Phillips Petroleum Co., Robinson said. > "The process is clear. The research we're trying to do today is to > change things and marry them to other processes." > Later this summer, two post-doctoral students will begin a full-time > study of a working, tabletop plant that will produce jet fuel > continuously, he said. One of the students, a chemical engineer, will > create computer software in which every segment of the production can > be scaled up in order to produce barrels a day as opposed to > milliliters per day. > "That would give us a fairly firm economic data," Robinson said. "The > back-of-the-envelope kind of things we're estimating now might be a > little loosey-goosey, not a real good bankable kind of estimate." > If the process proves profitable, Robinson said he would devote more > time marketing it to major chemical and petrochemical companies, > which could use his plant-based hydrocarbons to produce unleaded > gasoline, diesel fuel, kerosene and home heating oil. > "The products we get can feed right into a conventional refinery, and > they can make several different products out of it and still fit > right into the normal infrastructure we have today," he said. "What > our process does offer them is a feedstock for the future." > > > Biofuel at Journey to Forever: > http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html > > Biofuels list archives: > http://archive.nnytech.net/ > > Please do NOT send "unsubscribe" messages to the list address. > To unsubscribe, send an email to: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Your use of Yahoo! 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