“Biomass Catalytic Cracking Process” Converts Agric Waste into “BioCrude”

Bioecon (a Dutch biofuels start up company) and Khosla Ventures (a venture fund and assistance company), have joined forces to develop and commercialize a “biomass catalytic cracking process ” for the production of “bio oil” or “biocrude” from agricultural waste. “Bio oil” or “biocrude” is a mixture of hydrocarbons (obtained from the thermochemical processing of biomass) and can be further refined into transport fuels like gasoline or diesel. The joint venture called, Kior, Inc., will involve Khosland Ventures providing “series A funding”, and Bioecon providing expertise and intellectual property  to commercialize the biomass cracking process.

The technology is said to have some advantages over the existing BTL (biomass-to-liquid) technologies for the production of synthetic biofuels, such as biocrude. Paul O’Connor, Bioecon founder, says that the biomass catalytic cracking process involves the use of a “proprietary” method which impregnates the biomass with a solution containing a non-toxic catalyst and a thermochemical conversion which does not need superhigh temperatures. Steve Deutch, senior scientist of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in the United States, says that the process is plausible enough, given the limited technical description released by Kior. It may be possible to evaluate the process when more details are available.