The idea of replacing fossil-based fuel with a renewable source of sustainable energy is enough to get any environmentalist excited.&nbsp;USDA scientists have advanced a process to produce a crude liquid called &ldquo;bio-oil&rdquo; from agricultural waste. The team is headed by Agricultural Research Service chemical engineer&nbsp;Akwasi Boateng&nbsp;with the&nbsp;Sustainable Biofuels and Coproducts Unit&nbsp;at the&nbsp;Eastern Regional Research Center&nbsp;in Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania.
Crude bio-oil is produced by pyrolysis&mdash;a process that chemically decomposes plant and other organic matter using very high heat. The modified technique, called "tail-gas reactive pyrolysis," or TGRP, holds promise for improving the bio-oil that is ultimately processed into finished biofuels.
The&nbsp;Energy Independence and Security Act&nbsp;of 2007 mandates the United States produce at least 36 billion gallons of biofuels by the year 2022. This effort will require, in part, the development of a new industry to produce 21 billion gallons of advanced biofuels, which are based largely on non-food sources.
The raw biomass material includes non-food-grade plant matter procured from agricultural or household waste residue such as wood and switchgrass, and animal manures. Using these materials, bio-oils are produced at an accelerated rate using a new high-output mobile processing unit. Instead of shipping large amounts of agricultural waste to a refinery plant at high cost, the mobile reactor allows conversion of the biomass into energy-dense bio-oil right on the farm.
The goal of using TGRP on the farm is to yield a higher quality bio-oil that is more marketable to biofuel producers than bio-oil made from traditional pyrolysis methods. TGRP is an important step toward the ultimate goal of producing cleaner bio-oils that can be distilled at existing petroleum refineries.
ARS is USDA's chief intramural scientific research agency.
<a href="http://agresearchmag.ars.usda.gov/2016/jan/biofuel/">Read more</a>&nbsp;about this work in the January 2016 issue of&nbsp;AgResearch.
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ARS scientists are testing this mobile pyrolysis system for on-farm production of bio-oil from agricultural waste materials.

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The idea of replacing fossil-based fuel with a renewable source of sustainable energy is enough to get any environmentalist excited. USDA scientists have advanced a process to produce a crude liquid called â€œbio-oilâ€� from agricultural waste. 

USDA ARS scientists advance pyrolysis process

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