Member of CatchBio’s Advisory Board dr. George W. Huber is professor in chemical engineering at the University of Massachusetts. He is one of the leading experts on 'grassoline’: renewable fuel produced from cellulosic biomass.Grassoline can be produced from non-edible organic sources that can be grown on marginal land that is not used for food production. This means that these second-generation biofuels don’t compete with food crops. Huber: ‘We are developing techniques to convert biomass into cheap and renewable gasoline, diesel and chemicals. We develop novel technologies and at the same time we work on technology transfer. Because it’s one thing to be able to apply these technologies in the laboratory – and we are able to do that, we already licensed some of our technologies. It is quite a different story to make them suitable for use in a full scale cellulosic bio-refinery. We develop enabling technologies to make biomass conversion on industrial scale a reality.”
The future of fuel
Huber is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of CatchBio. The board’s job description is straightforward, he says: “We dispense advice about how to run the programme whenever the programme board asks us to. NWO can basically use our expertise any way they see fit.” His reason to join CatchBio’s Advisory Board is just as straightforward. Huber: “Working on and thinking about catalysis and biomass conversion is exciting. People around the world are developing technologies that will have a tremendous impact. It is clear that we need an alternative for fossil fuels. Likewise clear is that biomass is the only renewable carbon source we have.”
The United States has the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS). This standard demands a production capacity of 28 billion litres of renewable fuels by 2012. Huber: “And look for instance at British Petroleum, that is investing $ 500 million in renewable fuel research at University of California-Berkeley. It is clear that biomass will be very important in liquid fuel production in the future. And catalysis will be as important in the field of renewable liquid fuel production as it is today to petroleum.”
Leading the way
Because of its scope and the diversity of its participants,
CatchBio is a unique initiative, Huber says: “I don’t think there’s a comparable joint research effort on catalysis for biomass conversion anywhere in the world. In a way, the Dutch researchers are leading the way. They have a lot of expertise on catalytic conversion technologies for petroleum, and they can use that as a basis for developing new knowledge on biomass conversion technologies.” CatchBio will be successful in reaching its goals, Huber expects: “I’m convinced that the programme will lead to important innovations. This will take time, of course. As a rule of thumb, it will take about ten years to get a technology from the lab to a real-world application. But apart from that, CatchBio brings together different stakeholders and helps them focus their research efforts on biomass conversion. In that way, the programme is already a success.”