Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Biofuels: A Hands-On Approach, Learning The Potential Of Utilizing Non-Food Sources, Alexandra Ham, Gabrielle Pecora, Hoaithuong Bui, Timothy Camarella, Victor Pham, Marc Ting

Student Research Posters

The global energy economy is huge and thoughts of replacing large amounts of petroleum based fuels by massive levels of fermentation of grains are not realistic. On an energy basis what global agriculture produces for food will almost cover the energy demands if all of it is redirected to the production of fuels—either as alcohols for gasoline or as fat derivatives for diesel fuel. This means that chemical processes need to be developed that allow inclusion of non-food based agricultural and urban wastes as well as forest debris into the energy economy. These represent opportunities to capture new sources of …