Biotech Updates

ConocoPhillips Establishes Biofuels Research Program at Iowa State

April 27, 2007

The energy company ConocoPhillips will establish $22.5 million biofuels research program at Iowa State University in its bid to create joint research programs with major universities to produce viable solutions to diversify America's energy sources. ConocoPhillips will sponsor studies which give emphasis to crop improvement and production, the harvesting and transportation of biomass, and the impacts of biofuels on economic policy and rural sociology.

Robert C. Brown, the Iowa Farm Bureau Director of Iowa State's Office of Biorenewables Programs, said ConocoPhillips is especially interested in converting biomass to fuel through fast pyrolysis, a process that uses heat in the absence of oxygen to decompose biomass into a liquid product. This so-called bio-oil can be used as a heating oil or can be converted into transportation fuel at petroleum refineries.

 To read more: http://www.iastate.edu/%7enscentral/news/2007/apr/biofuels.shtml.