A two-year project announced today (24th November) sees Ceres and CHOREN joining forces to optimize energy crops for thermochemical conversion to advanced low-carbon biofuels. The joint project, funded in part by a grant from the US Department of Energy, will use Ceres to evaluate the composition of a broad range of switchgrass and willow plants, and provide biomass samples to CHOREN for thermochemical processing. The results will be used to identify the most relevant compositional traits, and later, to select the plants and traits that improve conversion and maximize fuel yields.

"Our goal here is to develop energy crop varieties specifically tailored to thermochemical processing," said Anna Rath, Ceres vice president of commercial development. "As with other conversion processes, improvements to the biomass itself -- through higher tons per acre and higher convertibility -- can have a tremendous impact on reducing costs." Raw materials, or feedstocks, could represent up to 50% of the cost of producing transportation fuels.

"Fine-tuning feedstocks will contribute greatly to process economics, enhancing the quality of the synthesis gas mixture and reducing the capital costs associated with the downstream gas-cleaning operations," said Christopher Peters, vice president of finance at CHOREN USA. "This type of lock-and-key approach between feedstocks and processing technology will be critical in the commercial scale-up of the advanced renewable fuel industry." He noted that results of the study will assist CHOREN in determining the location of its first commercial-scale, Biomass to Liquids facility in the United States.

In addition, Ceres and CHOREN plan to test commercial quantities of dedicated energy crops in a future collaboration effort at the world's first commercially operating Biomass to Liquids facility in Freiberg, Germany. "The operational experience gained in this commercial setting will provide invaluable and unique information to guide crop development," said Rath.