Scale-Up of Advanced Deconstruction and Conversion Technologies for Producing Biofuels from Woody Biomass

This project successfully developed, optimized, and scaled an innovative ionic liquid pretreatment technology to convert waste woody biomass to fermentable sugars in hydrolysate at 83 percent yields and further achieve an overall carbon conversion efficiency from biomass to fuel of nearly 80 percent. The conversion process required no solid-liquid separations, which reduces complexity and eliminates intermediate materials being lost. This project demonstrated scale-up from prior lab scale (around 2 liters) to a working volume of 680 liters in a 1,600-liter industrial-level fermenter, an important validation of commercial feasibility and scalability. The project team engineered a yeast strain to make advanced automotive and aviation biofuels (for example, isoprenol), which builds on the project accomplishments to establish the foundation for a broad variety of advanced biofuels made using the same woody biomass feedstock and processing technologies. The project identified paths forward to continue developing these biomass conversion approaches in future research, with a pilot plant based on this conversion technology being the next major step to commercializing new advanced biofuels made from California’s waste woody biomass