From fibre to fuel in a flash - Chemists convert cellulose to potential biofuel without enzymes.

Nature News ^ | 11 September 2008 | Philip Ball

[Maximum Leader]

The peswiki site is full of interesting articles about alternative energy— some of the stories are plum crazy (all sorts of perpetual motions machines are written up), but here’s the link to the algae to oil directory which seems on the level. Algae to oil is doable, but right now its damn expensive (the estimate I’ve read is $20 a gallon with present technology).

http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Algae_for_Oil

[Maximum Leader]

That’s an interesting idea. This line from the article got me thinking: “Two chemists in California now claim that it might be remarkably easy to do just that with little more than a strong acid to break down the cellulose”.

California definitely has a competitive advantage in the “strong acid” department. :o)

[Rockingham]

Here is a process that uses sugar to grow algae in the dark so that more oil is produced. It is not yet cost competitive.

http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=20319&channel=biztech&section=

[VanShuyten]

It was, but acid hydrolysis of cellulose run to completion yields nothing of value. The trick is to remove the valuable reaction products just at the right time as they are created before the acid attacks those. That's pretty tricky without a some kind of complicated continuous fractionation columns. I'd bet that the efficiency window is pretty small - slight changes in anything would destroy the quality of the final product.