Roger Ruan talk

Roger Ruan spoke at the U of MN Health and Safety retreat October 26, 2011, on a possible method for distributed biofuel production from cellulosic feed stocks.  Corn stover is the corn stalks produced during corn production.  The non edible biomass is plowed back into the ground.  Often there is more bulk material than is needed by the soil.  Roger's group has developed a microwave process to produce three products a synfuel which can be  used as a power generation source, ash which can be used as fertilizer and a mixed biofuel which can be processed into several different fuel types.  Moving the bulky cellulose material poses significant cost problems for a centralized processing plant.  If the initial processing of the fuel can be done on the farm then the higher energy more compact fuel can be transported to a plant for refining.  His group is developing a plug and play mobile processing unit that could be available for rent or purchase by farmers.

Microwave Assisted Pyrolysis System  - Roger Ruan power point slide

Update:  This is a pdf of Roger Ruan's talk on Bale to Barrel: Distributed Themochemical Biomass Conversions.