=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-452/paper-14
|storemode=property
|title=Invited lecture: Potentials and challenges of tailor-made fuels from biomass
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-452/paper14.pdf
|volume=Vol-452
}}
==Invited lecture: Potentials and challenges of tailor-made fuels from biomass==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-452/paper14.pdf
Potentials and Challenges of Tailor-Made Fuels from Biomass
S. Pischinger, M. Muether*
Institute for Combustion Engines (VKA)
RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
The Cluster of Excellence (CoE) ¨Tailor-Made Fuels from Biomass¨ (TMFB) takes an interdisciplinary
research approach towards new synthetic fuels based on biomass feedstock. New target-designed syn-
thesis pathways, employing novel catalytic systems, reaction solvents and tightly integrated production
processes, which embed intensified process units for fuel production, are considered to create new tailor-
made fuels most efficiently. The potential of the fuel as an optimisation parameter for future low-
temperature combustion technologies for internal combustion engines will be fundamentally explored.
Introduction The integrated approach, clustering expertise from
World-wide increasing carbon dioxide (CO2) emis- natural and engineering sciences, will follow a
sions, a rising energy demand and limited availabil- model-based design procedure: a mixture of a few
ity of fossil energy resources constitute major chal- well-defined candidate fuel components with tai-
lenges facing society today. Renewable raw mate- lored properties will be derived from the require-
rials are attaining increasing interest in this con- ments of the combustion process. The feasibility of
text. this fuel will depend on the research success on
In the European Union, the transport sector ac- attractive catalytic pathways and by the effort for
counts for approximately 30 % of the total energy their production. The viability of the desired blend
consumption and current forecasts even predict an of fuel components is therefore decided by techno-
increase in energy demand of 14 % for passenger logical, economic and ecological constraints, which
transport and 74 % for freight transport between critically depend on (bio-) chemical transformation,
2000 and 2030. Special emphasis is on transporta- process engineering and combustion technology.
tion fuels, due to their specific requirements with The barriers between established research fields
respect to distribution, storage, preparation and need to be overcome to achieve the CoE‘s objec-
combustion. Therefore, successful research activi- tive and to find a systematically optimised solution,
ties on the fi eld of alternative fuels are strongly which cannot be provided by a single discipline
required for the transport sector. alone.
The Cluster of Excellence (CoE) ¨Tailor-Made Fu- The jointly founded ¨Fuel Design Center¨ docu-
els from Biomass¨ (TMFB) takes an interdiscipli- ments the close collaboration of scientists from the
nary research approach towards new synthetic faculty of Natural Sciences, Mathematics and In-
fuels based on biomass feedstock. New target- formation Technology and the faculty of mechani-
designed synthesis pathways, employing novel cal engineering at RWTH Aachen University, to-
catalytic systems, reaction solvents and tightly gether with partners from the Fraunhofer Institute
integrated production processes, which embed for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology
intensified process units for fuel production, are (Aachen) and the Max-Planck-Institute für Kohlen-
considered to create new tailor-made fuels most forschung (Mülheim an der Ruhr).
efficiently. The potential of the fuel as an optimisa-
tion parameter for future low-temperature combus-
tion technologies for internal combustion engines
will be fundamentally explored.
The TMFB-Approach
The definition and production of these tailor-made
biofuels with favourable characteristics represent a
challenge for chemo- and biocatalysis, process
and systems engineering, combustion research
and engine technology. By striving for a new cata-
lytic, selective and targeted transformation of the
Fig. 1: The 3. Generation of Biofuels
whole plant material (lignocellulose) into tailored
fuel components, this CoE will provide the scientific
basis to introduce the third generation of biofuels.
These biofuels, in contrast to most of today’s bio-
fuels, will not be competing with the food chain.
* Corresponding author: muether@vka.rwth-aachen.de
ponents. Two novel and complementary biorefin-
Research Activities ery routes are investigated which target at the spe-
To achieve the scientific vision of the CoE, the cific classes of biomass: whole green plants with
research groups from RWTH Aachen University high water content and wooden plants with low
and its partner institutions are focusing on three water content, respectively.
major ¨Integrated Research Fields (IRF)¨:
IRF-3: Fuel Injection and Combustion
(i) ¨Molecular Transformation¨ The Integrated Research Field ¨Fuel Injection and
(ii) ¨Reaction and Process Engineering for Biore- Combustion¨ reconsiders the combustion process
newables¨ in combustion engines by using the fuel as a de-
(iii) ¨Fuel Injection and Combustion¨ sign parameter. The two traditional engine types,
the spark ignition (SI) and the compression ignition
These research fields are linked by two ¨Core In- (CI) engine, were designed to make use of the
teractions Fields (CIF)¨: lighter or the heavier fraction of liquid hydrocar-
bons which can be distilled from crude oil. By tai-
(i) ¨Fuel Design¨ and loring the fuel obtained from biomass to specific
(ii) ¨Chemical and Physical Property Modelling¨ engine needs, new engine combustion concepts
will be developed which previously could not even
Additional activities are bundled in be thought of. For CI engines, for example, auto-
the¨Supplementary Cluster Activities (SCA)¨ ignition of higher hydrocarbons, due to their low
temperature chemistry, is viewed as beneficial but
IRF-1: MOLECULAR TRANSFORMATION it is harmful for SI engines because the same
The integrated Research Field ¨Molecular Trans- chemistry is responsible for engine knocking. Tai-
formation¨ aims at the targeted conversion of bio- lor-made fuels having different temperature and
genous substrates derived from the renewable pressure dependencies of auto-ignition chemistry
feedstock streams cellulose, hemicellulose and may possibly avoid that contradiction. Since this
lignin into the molecular constituents of a tailor- feature and other properties differ from those of
made fuel. A selected range of constitutive mo- conventional fuels, tailor-made fuels will allow de-
lecular transformations on the basis of catalysis as signing a new combustion process which shares
the key technology will be the core of IRF-1. Owing common features of future SI and CI engines.
to the complexity of the required transformations,
the complementary benefits of the three major
catalysis disciplines, bio-, homo-, and heterogene-
ous catalysis need to be explored in an integrated
approach ranging from the molecular to the
mesoscopic scale.
Fig. 2: Direct catalytic conversion of the plant
material for energetically beneficial production processes
IRF-2: React ion and Process Engineering for Bio- Fig. 3: Direct catalytic conversion of the plant
renewables material for energetically beneficial production processes
The Integrated ResearchField ¨Reaction and Proc-
ess Engineering for Biorenewables¨ addresses key
issues in process engineering related to the transi- CIF-2: Physical and Chemical Property Modelling
tion of biorenewable feedstock in fuel production. Complex fluids consisting of intricate multifunc-
Research focuses on the foundations of integrated tional molecules of biogenous origin and ionic liq-
processes and intensified units; first, for the selec- uids (IL) as solvents are of key importance for the
tive conversion of biomass to substrates and later, research aims of the Cluster of Excellence. Today
for their subsequent transformation into fuel com- a lack of both, accurate description and fundamen-
tal understanding of the behaviour of such sys- constitutes an important aspect as well as the ini-
tems, is existing. Therefore, the goal of the Core tiation of learning processes within the cluster by
Interaction Field ¨Physical and Chemical Property the reflection of networking activities. For the fu-
Modelling¨ is to build a fundamental understanding ture, a transfer of this model shall be enabled to
and to create predictive models with a sound complex, highly networked, scientific cluster ap-
physical basis which will contribute towards the proaches of a similar type.
development of tailor-made fuels. Quantum me-
chanics (QM) will be used to describe molecular Fuel Design Center Aachen
properties while molecular simulations will reveal The Cluster of Excellence ¨Tailor-Made Fuels from
generic effects and analyse small-scale systems Biomass¨ strives to concentrate the existing exper-
as a basis to develop and validate coarse-grained tise to take advantage of methodological and sci-
analytical engineering models. Beyond the scope entific synergies. As a physical and visible focal
of the proposed CoE, the results will be valuable point of the interdisciplinary collaboration, a ¨Fuel
for the development of biogenous feedstock based Design Center¨ will be established at RWTH
industries in general. Aachen University, which provides laboratory
space of about 1000 m². Two new professorships
CIF-1: Fuel Design and five junior professorships will be setup at
In order to support the continuous pursuit of the RWTH Aachen University. In addition to a high
ultimate goal of finding a tailormade fuel from bio- profile international scientific advisory board with
mass, the key activities focussing on the fuel defi- key researchers from renowned institutes such as
nition are bundled in the cross-functional Core Princeton, Yale and the MIT, a board of key indus-
Interaction Field ¨Fuel Design¨. The Fuel Design trial players ensures a direct feedback from the
process is a complex problem involving all disci- application side, among which are chemical indus-
plines of the CoE, ranging from reaction and proc- tries such as Bayer, petrochemical industries such
ess design, fuel production and fuel preparation in as BP and Shell, and automotive companies such
the engine to combustion and emission formation. as Daimler, Ford, Volvo and VW. Consequently,
Such an all encompassing approach has never the research results will not only be introduced
been followed before. Only by using a systematic quickly into lectures and courses but also trans-
search procedure, assisted by suitable mathemati- ferred into industrial application.
cal models and methods, the vast and unique op-
portunities in the design of novel fuels can be ex- Acknowledgements
ploited. The methods and tools to be investigated This work is funded by the Excellence Initiative
not only allow identifying the promising compounds by the German federal and state governments to
among known ones, but rather aim at the discov- promote science and research at German universi-
ery of completely novel fuel components. In order ties.
to bridge the gaps still existing in models connect-
ing molecular structure to reaction, process and
combustion performance, appropriate data-driven
and hybrid model descriptions are derived using
experimental data and aggregated models from all
IRFs and from CIF-2.
Fig. 4: Model-based description and optimisation of the
overall process
SCA: Supplementary Cluster Activities
Supplementary Cluster Activities aim at the effi-
cient networking of scientific processes within the
CoE. Therefore, a conceptual framework has been
developed to improve the cluster performance. In
addition to this framework the enhancement of
satisfaction of all employees within the network