Compost crude

Producing ethanol from green waste is not a new idea -- but producing 'bio-crude' from green waste is.

The CSIRO and Monash University will jointly apply to patent the process the two institutions have developed in which forest thinnings, crop residues, waste paper and garden waste are converted to a synthetic crude oil.

As with the crude from the ground, bio-crude can provide a host of different fuels -- including diesel and petrol -- as well as other chemicals typically used in material production processes.

Your fast-growing and renewable garden clippings can be collected and processed in local refineries, using the new method to produce fuel for transport. This avoids the cost of shipping the raw material to larger refineries. The waste is CO2-breathing vegetation at some point in its life cycle and is -- so the CSIRO and Monash claim -- a likely carbon-neutral solution for fuelling road transport.

Furafuel technology, as the patent has been named, skirts the problem of extracting road transport fuel from food crops and the consequent rise in price for staple foods in the global economy.

Dr Steven Loffler of CSIRO Forest Biosciences says: "By making changes to the chemical process, we've been able to create a concentrated bio-crude which is much more stable than that achieved elsewhere in the world".

The key element of the biomass that lends itself to conversion is lignocellulose, which has been the material of choice for bio-ethanol production.

Final laboratory tests remain to be completed and the partners will apply for a patent once that's done.

Image: courtesy of CSIRO.

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