New patent granted for biofuels creation in Wisconsin

The Wisconsin Institute for Sustainability Technology (WIST) has been issued a patent to create biofuels from plant fibre.

It is WIST’s first patent will allow for a process that can create biofuels and other products from cellulosic plant material including agricultural residues like corn stover or plants grown specifically for fuel production, such as hardwood and softwood trees.

‘This gives us an economically viable way to use grass, trees or wood waste to make renewable fuels and chemicals,’ said Eric Singsaas, associate professor of biology at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and co-inventor of the process. ‘It also gives us a method to commercialise some of the work we’ve done at the university.’

The patent allegedly protects a method that uses an aqueous solvent to separate biomass into pure cellulose and lignin, the substance that gives woody biomass its rigidity. The lignin-solvent mixture can then be separated from the water to form a high-energy-density fuel that can be used independently or combined with biodiesel.

Singsaas adds that the process is also a key step in making other high-value bioproducts, not just for creating biofuels.