Biocrude could power Australian aviation

Saturday 14 May 2011 12:05PM (view full episode)

Thomas Maschmeyer has applied catalysts to processes which produce fuel from forestry and agricultural waste. Compared to production of bioethanol, this biocrude oil using catalysts, and high temperature and pressure, captures four times more energy. When scaled up, the raw resource could come from macroalgae in seawater, and therefore not compete with current land use and water use. Thomas Maschmeyer says his biocrude oil would be perfect for use in aviation, replacing the current fossil fuel based jet fuel.

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Robyn Williams: We shall also feature two people who were honoured at the Academy of Science in Canberra last week, the first being Thomas Maschmeyer, head of chemistry at the University of Sydney. He was elected a fellow and told the Academy of an exciting new way of producing biofuel that could even supply the aviation industry. And so, congratulations.

Thomas Maschmeyer: Thank you very much, it's been a great honour to have been elected and to have been here at these three fantastic days at the Shine Dome in Canberra.

Robyn Williams: Of course you're recognised for being an expert on catalysts, and the centre at the University of Sydney has been going strong for some time. And you are applying it to biofuels. How?

Thomas Maschmeyer: That is correct, we are making bio crude oil out of lignocellulosic feedstock, that is feedstock that does not compete with food. And we are using a high-temperature, high-pressure process that is aided by catalysts to remove the oxygen in the biomass feedstock.

Robyn Williams: You said this feedstock, this cellulosic, it could be almost anything, it can be any plant, any leftovers, even bits of old wood.

Thomas Maschmeyer: That's correct, but it has to be reasonably well-defined feedstock. We can't in one production run change the composition of that feedstock very dramatically. As long as we know the composition of the feedstock we can cope with that. That is one way in which the previous attempts of this technology failed. They were trying to use green waste, which was by definition varying very substantially in any one batch.

Robyn Williams: And the poor old catalysts get confused, don't they.

Thomas Maschmeyer: That's exactly right, they get confused and they make things which starts to polymerise and gum up the oil and gum up the process.

Robyn Williams: And what you want is something that is rather more predictable in terms of not exactly its purity, but consistency. How much more productive, efficient is your system?

Thomas Maschmeyer: Compared to bio-ethanol, I need about 80% of my chemical energy in the starch to in fact make my bio-ethanol. So I only have a net energy benefit of something like 20%. In our case, going from the biomass to the bio crude oil, we have only use of about 20% of the chemical energy in our feedstock, and therefore we have an energy benefit of 80%. So it's about four times better.

Robyn Williams: Four times better! That's really extraordinary. A question that always comes up with this sort of thing, can you scale up? In other words, the more stuff you've got and the bigger your vat, can you simply go on indefinitely getting bigger and bigger?

Thomas Maschmeyer: Well, currently we have a pilot plant that runs about 100 kilograms an hour, and we are just starting to construct commercial size demonstration units of 20,000 to 40,000 tonnes a year to show the upscaleabilty of our process. Our process is inherently modular, so we do not need the full 200,000, 500,000-tonne process, we don't need vast amounts of investment, so we can upscale reasonably easily.

Robyn Williams: And what about the source of the material? Surely if you have to be consistent in your stock you can't really guarantee an unlimited large supply, can you?

Thomas Maschmeyer: Initially our business model is to interact with existing waste streams. So we are going into the forestry industry for forestry waste, maybe some energy cropping of grasses and other agricultural waste streams, and that is already quite a large supply.

Robyn Williams: Yes, there is no shortage of that stuff, it keeps coming.

Thomas Maschmeyer: Yes, absolutely, and we hope to be able to announce in a few weeks that we have just signed a major agreement with a pulp and paper company, retrofitting one of their paper mills.

Robyn Williams: So really, Thomas, have you had a look at some of the figures of this, what you could actually provide for a nation like Australia, for a city like Sydney, if you were to scale up what you're doing to a level that really is something that might be working in 2020, 2030?

Thomas Maschmeyer: Biomass is of course a reasonably scarce resource, and when people go around spreading that we can replace all of the fossil oil with bio crude oil or biomass, that just doesn't work. In terms of where do biofuels probably sit best, I think it's in the aviation industry. If we were to change all of the aviation fuel into renewable fuels based on our process, based on lignocellulosics, we would need about 10% of the world's current agricultural production. That's a large number, but I can imagine that to be a possible addition via maybe macro algae, going offshore into salt water, not competing with current land use, not competing with fresh water, and also by bundling all my current waste streams.

Robyn Williams: Could you run Qantas on your scheme?

Thomas Maschmeyer: Absolutely, and we are in contact with a range of airlines and aircraft manufacturers about our work.

Robyn Williams: It is Alan Joyce keen?

Thomas Maschmeyer: I've forgotten.

Robyn Williams: You have to be more discreet, do you? I see! But what you're talking about is that you can provide something for a major industry because the cost of conventional oil, aircraft fuel, is almost crippling the aviation industry at the moment.

Thomas Maschmeyer: Absolutely, if we really get the predicted...and it is predicted by the International Energy Agency, that's a big crunch in 2013, 2014 in terms of world oil supply, the oil price will go up very dramatically and it will impact airlines in an extremely negative way. And so really it is trying to help them to maintain their industry, that biofuels could play a major part in it.

Robyn Williams: I suppose you know about the fact that biofuels have been used in certain aircraft. I think Richard Branson has looked at one scheme and it has been tried in a couple of other aircraft as well. Have you been involved in that at all?

Thomas Maschmeyer: No, we haven't been involved in that because that's really what I will call still first-generation biofuels because they are based on vegetable oils, and vegetable oils by definition can be made available as feed for animals or food for humans. So what we are doing is we are starting with the rest of the plant, not the seed, but the lignocellulosic, the fibrous part, and we convert that into bio crude oil which then is made into jet fuel which is indistinguishable from current jet fuel and therefore doesn't need to go through a very demanding additional certification processes either.

Robyn Williams: So the waste from your garden and the local park could help you fly away on your next trip one day. Professor Thomas Maschmeyer runs chemistry at the University of Sydney and is a brand new fellow of the Australian Academy of Science.


Thomas Maschmeyer
Professor of Chemistry
The University of Sydney


Robyn Williams
David Fisher

Comments (5)

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  • Karuna Knights :

    17 May 2011 12:58:58pm

    Congratulations to Professor Maschmeyer for his innovative work with biofuels. However his proposal to use ‘waste wood’ from the timber industry sent shivers of horror down my back.
    ‘Wood waste’, sold as woodchips, has driven the destruction of vast areas of Australian native forest. In Tasmania much of this was previously untouched wilderness.
    Forestry is the only industry that does not have to obey Australia’s environment laws (the EPBC act), and logging practices which are claimed to be sustainable, have taken species such as the Swift Parrot to the edge of extinction.

    Now the industry is on its knees and there are some who see its salvation in using native forest wood waste for biofuels, and in attracting renewable energy certificates and a possible carbon market.
    To achieve their aim Forestry has been engaged in some creative carbon accounting which is likely to fail a proper scientific scrutiny. However it is possible that political pressure could prevail and allow this travesty to occur.

    So please, if wood waste is to be used in biofuels it is essential to ensure that that it comes from genuinely FSC certified plantations.

  • Steve :

    17 May 2011 3:48:04pm

    As a scientist who has been involved in the long struggle to protect native forests from woodchipping, the following exchange sent a shiver down my spine:



    In the 1970s the Australian woodchipping industry began under the guise of using waste from forestry. Before long woodchipping became the main driver of old growth forest logging.

    Any industry based on the use of waste creates an incentive to produce more waste. The woodchipping example shows how the tail can end up wagging the dog, with tremedously destructive consequences.

  • Bob_FJ :

    23 May 2011 10:04:11am


  • Greg Bell :

    02 Jun 2011 8:36:24pm

    The concept is a joke from square one. There is no such thing as "waste" in nature. Agricultural and forestry "wastes" must be returned to the soil where microbes and fungi break down the nutrients for future trees or crops to use.

    Any other "business plan" impoverishes the soil and reduces our likelihood of lasting long on this planet.

  • Philip Mitchell Graham :

    18 Jul 2011 12:47:54am

    We have two major problems in victoria that could provide a significant source of biomass.

    Forest litter build-up and bushfire danger.

    Every year millions of tons of biomass goes up in smoke and there is nothing we can do to stop it. Traditional 'controlled burning' often ends up getting out of control, and there are never enough safe days in the year to complete the controlled burning programs.

    Manual removal of forest litter on foot using back-pack vacuum units would be job intensive and could be integrated into many existing forms of volunteer land-care programs and recreational activities. Fuel reduction mosaics and strategic clearing could progress without the need for fire.

    Collecting biomass could even become a sport! The biofuel produced could also power all the equipment and transport, creating a completely self-contained sustainable industry. Workers could be paid in biofuel credits.

    Collecting biomass on foot would also provide an opportunity for many individuals to develop an intimate knowledge of specific landscapes. Over time, this knowledge could be collated into a highly detailed map of Victoria's environment. The land care, scientific, educational, search and rescue benefits of this map are obvious.