News Release: Science & Industry Peers Turn to NREL for Biomass Solutions

June 2, 2011 | By Heather Lammers | Contact media relations

The biomass industry looks to the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) for solutions when it comes to lignocellulosic conversion of biomass to fuels. CELLULOSE editors recently announced that three NREL papers were in the top 10 for most requested articles of 2010.

"These heavily cited papers highlight the impact that NREL researchers are having on the bio-fuel and bio-chemical research, development and deployment communities," NREL Deputy Laboratory Director for Science and Technology Dana Christensen said. "NREL’s work reflects the importance of translating fundamental science advances into meaningful, commercially viable applications that offer substantial economic and environmental benefits."

These NREL-authored articles were featured in a special issue of CELLULOSE, “Corn Stover Conversion to Biofuel: DOE's Preparation for Readiness in 2012:

  • An economic and environmental comparison of a biochemical and a thermochemical lignocellulosic ethanol conversion processes, by Thomas D. Foust, Andy Aden, Abhijit Dutta and Steven Phillips
  • Role of pretreatment and conditioning processes on toxicity of lignocellulosic biomass hydrolysates, by Philip T. Pienkos and Min Zhang
  • Technoeconomic analysis of the dilute sulfuric acid and enzymatic hydrolysis process for the conversion of corn stover to ethanol, by Andy Aden and Thomas D. Foust.

NREL’s fundamental and applied energy research accelerates advances in technology innovation and engineering for biomass and other renewable energy resources. The lab’s newly completed Integrated Biorefinery Research Facility (IBRF) provides NREL with unique capabilities to help industry more rapidly test, demonstrate, scale up and commercialize leading biofuels projects. NREL is focused on technology partnerships that leverage facilities such as the IBRF to help secure America’s energy future.

CELLULOSE is an international journal devoted to the dissemination of research and scientific and technological progress in the field of industrial polysaccharides. The journal is concerned with the pure and applied science of cellulose and related materials, and with the development of relevant new technologies.

NREL is the Department of Energy’s primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. NREL is operated for DOE by The Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC.

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