E-Bio-Fuel: Electrosynthesis of biofuels via co-valorisation of bio-fermentation products and captured CO2—A feasibility study
This project was completed by end of 2021. Through the flexible grant, an EPSRC IAA grant at Loughborough University has been securred to further commercialise the technology, with a patent being filed. The IAA project is currently on going. An addtional EPSRC grant (£1.4M) has been securred to further develop the electrochemical process originally proposed in the flexible grant with new applications (producing chemicals instead of fuels) Biomanufacturing with carbon capture and utilisation: A Zero Carbon Loss System (ukri.org).
Summary: The proposed framework is applied to four sustainable fuel production pathways against 13 criteria categorised under economic, environmental, technical and social dimensions. The analysis revealed the environmental and the economic to be the most important ones followed by the social and technical evaluation dimensions. The e-fuel followed by the e-biofuel are found the two top ranked production pathways that utilising electrochemical reduction process and its combination with anaerobic digestion. These findings along with the recommendations provide decision-makers with guidelines on the sustainable fuel production pathways selection and formulate effective policies.
Jin Yuan
