AMES, IOWA – Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory and Iowa State University are investigating an older technology called gasification in hopes of producing ethanol. By combining gasification with nanoscale porous catalysts, they hope to create ethanol from a wide range of biomass, including animal waste, distiller’s grain left over from ethanol production, corn stover from the field, grass, wood pulp and garbage.

Gasification is a process that turns carbon-based feedstocks under high temperature and pressure in an oxygen-controlled atmosphere into synthesis gas, or syngas. Syngas is made up primarily of carbon monoxide and hydrogen (more than 85% by volume) and smaller quantities of carbon dioxide and methane.

"The great thing about using syngas to produce ethanol is that it expands the kinds of materials that can be converted into fuels," said Victor Lin, Ames Lab chemist and chemical and biological science program director. "You can use the waste product from the distilling process or any number of other sources of biomass, such as switchgrass or wood pulp. Basically any carbon-based material can be converted into syngas. And once we have syngas, we can turn that into ethanol."

The research is funded by the D.O.E.’s Offices of Basic Energy Sciences and Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Ames Laboratory is a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science laboratory operated for the D.O.E. by Iowa State University.