Winning that competition—or at least leveling the

economic playing field—requires a leap forward. And by developing a new process for obtaining not one, but three high-value products from  in one fell swoop, University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers and their collaborators have now made that leap.
The researchers, led by James Dumesic, professor of chemical and biological engineering, published their results today (May 19, 2017) in the journal Science Advances.
Their new process tripled the fraction of biomass converted to high-value products to nearly 80 percent, also tripling the expected rate of return for an investment in the technology from roughly 10 percent (for one end product) to 30 percent.
"When a technology is new and risky, proving its economic feasibility and profit potential is critical for attracting investors," says David Martin Alonso, the study's first author and a researcher in chemical and  at UW-Madison. "That's why we are very excited about its 30-percent internal rate of return."


Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-05-triple-boosting-renewable-fuel-favor.html#jCp