Biomass conversion into biofuels is commonly accomplished via the biological route (i.e. the biomass is degraded enzymatically and then fermented to ethanol). The produced ethanol is then blended into regular gasoline at the desired proportion. Recently, a non-biological route for biomass conversion has been reported by scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (United States). An attractive feature of the process is that the final product is not ethanol for blending with gasoline, but the actual transport fuel itself (ready to use “biogasoline” without blending). Furthermore, the operating conditions of this two-stage catalytic process can be modified to produce not only gasoline, but also other types of fuel, i.e., diesel or jet fuel. In the first stage reactor, biomass is heated to about 227 degrees Celsius together with a platinum-rhenium catalyst to strip off oxygen molecules from the biomass and to produce mixture of alcohols and organic acids. The stage 1 product usually forms an oily upper layer in the reaction mixture. This oily layer is separated and fed into the stage 2 reactor where it is converted to the desired liquid fuel (gasoline, diesel or jet fuel), depending on the reaction conditions. The process is said to be “a thousand times faster than microbes” due to the high operating temperatures, and requires “smaller, cheaper reactors”. Details of their study are published in the journal Science (URL above)..