Talk:Biomass to liquid

Fungi

This was posted on the Biodiesel page, but isn't biodiesel by chemical definition. It is interesting, however. Where should it be placed?

A tree fungus, gliocladium roseum, has been found to excrete a mixture of hydrocarbons very similar to diesel fuels, as well as having the ability to digest cellulose. ^[1]

--E8 (talk) 03:30, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Why would this not be biodiesel? General definition: "Biodiesel is a domestic, renewable fuel for diesel engines derived from natural oils like soybean oil, and which meets the specifications of ASTM D 6751." Technical definition: "Biodiesel, n—a fuel comprised of mono-alkyl esters of long chain fatty acids derived from vegetable oils or animal fats, designated B100, and meeting the requirements of ASTM D 6751." http://biodiesel.org/what-is-biodiesel/biodiesel-basics Juzhong (talk) 11:22, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

The "mycodiesel", as described in the only non-technical sources available, appears to be formed of alkanes rather than mono-alkyl esters, and as such, they are chemically different (very different functional groups). Thus, it's not biodiesel, which is specifically esters.--E8 (talk) 14:22, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

It produces " acetic acid esters of straight-chained alkanes" among other things. Juzhong (talk) 23:42, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Ah, that's a much better source. It's still not biodiesel, though there appears to be definite feedstock potential. This is an important piece of information:

G.roseum can make such important fuel-based compounds, including fatty acids, from a cellulose-based medium, it would seem that a much larger search for such organisms in our natural environment needs to be launched.

The paper does mention biodiesel, albeit in a obfuscated fashion:

Other fungal lipids. ‘Bio-diesel’ is a term that suggests a biological source of compounds that can effectively be used to run a diesel engine. Commonly, these compounds are primarily long-chained fatty acids derived from the hydrolysis of di- and triglycerides produced by higher plants and algae. Thus, in order to determine if any of these non-volatile lipids are produced by G. roseum in culture, the organism was grown for 30 days, with shaking, at 23 uC in 1 litre of medium G (in a 2 litre flask). The yeast extract used in the medium had been thoroughly extracted at least twice with methylene chloride in order to remove lipids. After incubation, the fungus was removed by filtration and the liquid extracted with two equal volumes of methylene choride and taken to dryness by flash evaporation at 40 uC. TLC was performed, employing standard compounds as references in

the following solvent systems: A, chloroform/methanol (9 : 1, v/v); B, toluene/ethyl acetate (8 : 2, v/v); and C, methylene chloride/methanol (6 : 4, v/v). Compounds were detected after spraying with the anisaldehyde/ vanillin and sulfuric acid reagent (Stahl, 1969; Cardellina, 1991). Similar methods were applied to an identical medium that had not been inoculated with the fungus, as a control.

Good find for a source. I'll repost some of the information along with this source; it will need some work / addition though. I suspect there will be a Mycodiesel page soon, too.--E8 (talk) 00:27, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Pyrolysis

The article lists Flash Pyrolysis which is a relatively new process that produces biochar as a byproduct.

Should the article also list standard Pyrolysis which completely reduces the material leaving coke (Carbon) which contains some inorganic plant nutrents (mostly Phosphorus & Potassium). This coke can be used to produce Syngas for the Fischer Tropsch process and the plant nutrents can be recycled.

Actually, the Fischer Tropsch process does not use Biomass as an input but rather it uses Syngas made from coke made from biomass. As the first paragraph states, a multi-step process, however, this is not made clear.