New Oil Resources was co-founded by Catallo and Dr. Gary Miller. New Oil Resources’ process uses near-critical water to treat the biomass in a process commonly referred to as hydrothermal liquefaction or thermal depolymerization. Immediate applications include processing municipal sewage sludge, processing waste streams from the ethanol industry and converting algae to fuel. Algae can be processed without dewatering and all the carbon is converted to fuels, not just the fatty oils.

Conventional thermal depolymerization results in a thick, oxygenated oil, replete with heavy compounds (C₉ to C₂₀ (see chromatogram below); the heavy compounds are primarily phenols. With the New Oil tailored system, the liquefaction process much lighter, deoxygenated hydrocarbons, similar to the gasoline fraction produced in petroleum refineries. The product includes the high octane aromatics toluene, xylene and benzene, and no heavy compounds (see below).

Results from conventional thermal depolymerization. Click to enlarge.		Results from NOR process. Click to enlarge.

The operating conditions of the process can be changed so that C₅ through C₈ alcohols are produced instead of gasoline. Pentane and toluene are also produced in this alcohol production process.

Some 70% to 80% of the energy in the feed is returned in the final products. The remaining 20% to 30% of the energy is used to run the process. The process has a small footprint, produces renewable energy and is water friendly. It also utilizes technology and equipment already in use in the petrochemicals industry.

Our advantage is that we apply basic chemistry instead of using biological processes or relying on catalysts. The chemistry we use is similar to gas phase kinetics which is more reliable and much easier to scale up.

Our process is similar to that used by several companies worldwide. We use hot water to depolymerize the cellulose, lignins, lipids and other polymers contained in the biomass. The difference between all these companies is what you do next. We impact the chemistry so that the depolymerized biomass turns into the products we want. Cellulosic material comes out of our process as oxygen free aliphatics containing five to eight carbon atoms and aromatics. This product is similar to the high octane gasoline produced in petroleum refineries.

—Dr. Gary Miller

Resources

• US Patent 6,180,845: Transforming biomass to hydrocarbon mixtures in near-critical or supercritical water

• W. James Catallo, Todd F. Shupe, Jay L. Comeaux, Thomas Junk (2010) Transformation of glucose to volatile and semi-volatile products in hydrothermal (HT) systems. Biomass and Bioenergy Volume 34, Issue 1, Pages 1-13 doi: 10.1016/j.biombioe.2009.07.017