Progress Illinois

An innovative process to convert wood waste directly into renewable, high-octane gasoline has been developed successfully at the Des Plaines-based Gas Technology Institute (GTI), a non-profit that researches and develops energy technologies.

The recently-developed technology was crafted over a four-year period at GTI's gasification campus as part of a public-private pilot project supported by the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) integrated biorefineries program.

At GTI's pilot plant, some 700 tons of woody biomass, such as mill and logging residue, were gasified and about 10,000 gallons of gasoline were produced.

"Gasification has a very checkered past," explained Jim Patel, president of the California-based biomass gasification company Carbona Corporation, a partner of the DOE-backed project. "People have made promises of gasification technology but (there have not been) too many successes. Here, we've proved that gasification works. We can clean up the gas, and the gas can be converted into gasoline."