Chemical Engineering researchers from Purdue University (United States) are proposing the creation of mobile processing plants for biofuel production using a thermochemical process called, "fast-hydropyrolysis-hydrodeoxygenation". The "mobile" approach sidesteps a major economic hurdle in biofuels production from lignocellulosic biomass, which is the high transport cost of the solid biomass feedstock. The Purdue University news release describes the process as follows: "Biomass along with hydrogen will be fed into a high-pressure reactor and subjected to extremely fast heating, rising to as hot as 500 degrees Celsius, or more than 900 degrees Fahrenheit in less than a second. The hydrogen containing gas is to be produced by "reforming" natural gas, with the hot exhaust directly fed into the biomass reactor". At high temperature, the biomass breaks down into smaller molecules in the presence of hydrogen and suitable catalysts. The condensed reaction product can eventually be used as fuel. The proposed process reportedly produces twice as much biofuel as presently-used technologies, when hydrogen is derived from natural gas. A publication describing the process appears in the Environmental Science and Technology journal (URL above).