Dollars for Bio Research & Development

MSU, UM, WSU rev up efforts to get biofuels to market

Posted on 8/8/2007 1:32:07 PM

Two teams of engineers from Michigan State University – chemical and mechanical – have been selected to negotiate for $4.7 million in grants to work with industry to create new fuels from renewable resources that are more complex and sophisticated than existing biofuels, as well as engines that can take full advantage of those next generation fuels.

Wayne State University also got $3.5 million under the program, and the University of Michigan $1.5 million.

The three Michigan institutions got five of the 11 projects and $9.7 million of the $21.5 million handed out by Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman Thursday.

Combined with industry investment, the 1 projects will total nearly $43 million to support improvement of engine and combustion systems for the next generation of efficient vehicles.

During negotiations, MSU will match the federal Department of Energy award with funds from other sources. MSU has been selected to negotiate for $2.4 million from the DOE to partner with Ford Motor Co. for a project to develop advanced, low-temperature combustion designs for diesel engines using biofuel blends optimized for engine performance. MSU is the only university to be selected as a lead in the project in this round of $21.5 million worth of award opportunities.

MSU engineers also are involved in another project with Visteon Corp. in Van Buren Township, which has been selected for negotiation of an award of $2.3 million to achieve gasoline-like fuel economy when using E-85 ethanol blends by minimizing thermal, dynamic, volumetric and other system efficiency losses. Other partners will be the DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory and Mahle Powertrain.

The University Research Corridor -- the partnership of MSU, the University of Michigan and Wayne State University -- also announced the MSU grants, as well as grants to UM and Wayne State.

The other projects involving URC universities were :

-- Wayne State will partner with Delphi Automotive Systems LLC in Troy, which has been selected for negotiation of an award of up to $2.2 million for a project to demonstrate a vehicle with an E-85 optimized engine, yielding up to 30 percent fuel efficiency improvement.

--Wayne State will also partner with Ford Motor Co. as well as ConceptsNREC and FEV Global, for negotiation of an award of up to $1.3 million for a project to use diesel-boosting technologies to improve efficiency and performance of advanced, low-temperature combustion engines.

--UM will partner with Robert Bosch LLC in Farmington Hills as well as Ricardo Inc., for a $1.5 million project to implement an integrated hardware-software system, yielding gasoline-like fuel economy when operating on E-85.

MSU officials say teaming up the chemical and mechanical sides of engineering can ward off some of the current problems with biofuels.

“We're using an integrated approach, which hasn't really been done before,” said Dennis Miller, MSU professor of chemical engineering and materials science, who is leading MSU’s partnership with Ford. “These new biofuels will be more sophisticated than ethanol and biodiesel. By designing the engines at the same time, we believe we can optimize efficiency, performance and environmental benefits. ”

The chemical engineering team is Miller; Kris Berglund, University Distinguished Professor of chemical engineering and forestry; Ramani Narayan, professor of chemical and biochemical engineering; and Carl Lira, associated professor of chemical engineering and materials science.

Together they'll work on refining fuels from renewable resources such as soybean and other plant oils and woody stems and stalks from trees and other plants. A significant part of the biofuel work builds on earlier biofuel and fermentation work by Miller, Lira, Berglund and Narayan.

Much of the new work will take place at the MSU Biorefinery Training Facility at the Michigan Brewing Co. in Webberville, a refinery for a variety of biofuels, biochemicals and other bioproducts.

As the chemical engineering team designs these fuels, mechanical engineers, along with Ford, will test the fuels and working to create engines that can maximize the fuel performance, said Harold Schock, professor of mechanical engineering.

Schock describes the biofuels as an automotive revolution and the engine modifications as evolution.

“A lot of the details of how engines perform can have a serious influence on the improvement in efficiency,” Schock said. “Designing the engines to accommodate new fuels and new fuel properties can make a tremendous impact. It can make a 20 to 50 percent difference in the way an engine operates.”

Schock leads the engineering team, joined by associate professor Farhad Jaber and assistant professor Tonghun Lee. Schock also is working on the Visteon project .

“If we're successful then many jobs will be created as the biofuel industry expands and new engine technologies are implemented,” Miller said. “Our approach should lead to much broader use of biofuels as we identify superior fuel blends, and as we begin to produce engines that are more compatible with the biofuels.”

All told, the DOE will award a total of up to $21.5 million for 11 cost-shared research and development projects that aim to improve the fuel efficiency of light-duty vehicle engines.

This announcement comes on the heels of MSU receiving a $50 million DOE grant to partner with the University of Wisconsin-Madison to establish the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center for basic science research aimed at solving some of the most complex problems in converting natural materials to energy.

More at www.doe.gov/news/5298.htm.