Research Focus
Our research centers around technical and economic evaluation of biofuel production processes. The approach comprises building models that describe the material and energy flows in a virtual biorefinery (material and energy balances), which become the basis for capital and operating cost calculations. This approach allows investigating the impact of various technologies, research strategies, and business decisions on the economics of biofuel production. Biofuels studied include ethanol, renewable drop-in diesel, renewable aviation fuels, among others.
Projects
Technoeconomic Model of Lignocellulosic Biofuels Production
JBEI is developing technoeconomic models of various aspects of lignocellulosic biofuel production. The models can be used to estimate the impact of various market and technology developments on the economics of biofuel and enzyme production. The models and the assumptions used to construct them have been deposited on the wiki, which allows users to choose the parameter scenarios that are of most interest to them.
Featured Media
What happened to biofuels?
The Economist, September 7, 2013
Photo: The Economist
A Wiki for the Biofuels Research Community
Researchers Delve into Enzyme Costs
Ethanol Producer Magazine, April 11, 2012
Cost of biofuels no longer sky high
The Sydney Morning Herald, May 22, 2013
Photo: Craig Abraham
A Biofuels Wiki
Science, Oct. 22, 2010
Featured Publications
- “Survival of the fittest: An economic perspective on the production of novel biofuels“, AIChE Journal (2013)
- “Technoeconomic analysis of renewable aviation fuel from microalgae, Pongamia pinnata, and sugarcane,” Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining (2013)
- “The challenge of enzyme cost in the production of lignocellulosic biofuels,” Biotechnol and Bioengineering” (2011)
- “Techno-economic analysis of a lignocellulosic ethanol biorefinery with ionic liquid pre-treatment,” Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining (2011)
Featured Intellectual Property