Past Webinars

A Compelling Case for Integrated Biorefineries

Benjamin Thorp, March 4, 2008

Ben Thorp, President of the Flambeau River BioRefinery in Wisconsin, is a leading expert in biorefineries and a respected former executive of several major paper and engineering companies. Ben is a TAPPI fellow, holds several patents, and serves on the boards of three companies and three non-profits.

ABSTRACT:
The technology is here for liquid biofuels to supplement petroleum-based transportation fuels. In the U.S., the predominant “first generation” biofuel is ethanol derived from corn, followed by ethanol derived from hemicellulose at sulfite pulp mills and biodiesel derived from vegetable oil or animal fat. “Second generation” fuels include renewable gasoline and diesel, cellulosic ethanol and fuel feedstock made from catalytic reactions (e.g., Fischer-Tropsch).

The U.S. has established renewable fuel standards that go well beyond the capability of corn-based ethanol.  Many analysts forecast the need for “second generation” biofuels to meet demands. Commercial activities show that renewable fuels can be cost-effectively produced on a commercial scale.

The forest products industry has the commercial skills and resources critical to this emerging industry, and is on the verge of awakening to the opportunities. What remains is to sort out real opportunity from volumes of information containing far too much hope and hype.

Topics to be covered include:

• Current process pathways to produce "second generation" biofuels, including a comparison of thermal and enzymatic pathways to convert cellulose to fuel.
• A summary of commercial North American activities in "second generation" biofuels and the biorefinery.
• An understanding of technical and commercial activities used to predict both short-term and long-term winning approaches.
• A compelling case for an integrated forest biorefinery.
• A review of the environmental and economic benefits of integrated forest biorefineries, including the significant extension of mill life that is possible.

Bio for Ben Thorp

Benjamin A. Thorp, III
Renewable Energy Consultant
President, Flambeau River BioRefinery

Ben is a leader in renewable energy, a former leader in pulp and paper associations, and retired director of pulp & paper engineering, Georgia-Pacific Corp. In addition Ben was an officer with Chesapeake Corp. James River Corp., BE&K, Poyry-BEK and Huyck Corp.

Ben graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park, MD with a bachelors degree in physics. He completed advanced studies in Mechanical Engineering, Management, and Marketing. He is currently serving on 3 company and 3 non profit boards. He is a past board member of several organizations.

Honors awarded to Ben include being named a TAPPI Fellow in 1986, being awarded the TAPPI Paper & Board Division Leadership Award in 1994, receiving the PIMA Glen T. Renegar Award in 1999 and the 2002 PIMA-CPBIS Management Excellence award. Thorp is the holder of six U.S. Patents with others pending submission.

The concept of biorefinery is not new to the Forest Products Laboratory. Working with the army and the University of Wisconsin, the FPL patented a dilute acid process for converting wood and agricultural wastes into ethanol in 1945.  Dubbed the Madison Process, construction was nearly complete on a full scale plant as World War II came to an end.  The interest in biorefinery today mimics the need in 1945: International turmoil that led to a shortage of petroleum and increased demand due to the needs of the military or today, due to increased industrial activity throughout the world.  The Forest Products Laboratory was part of the solution in 1945 and is part of the solution today.  The most critical needs are to make more effective use of the five carbon sugars that represent about 30% of the carbohydrates in hardwoods and agricultural residuals, and to break the recalcitrant cellulose barrier.  Recalcitrant cellulose limited the yield of ethanol from the dilute acid process to 66-72 gallons per metric ton of wood in 1945 and limits enzymatic methods for ethanol production to about the same yield today.  This presentation will briefly discuss the history of the dilute acid process and summarize current research at FPL: integration of ethanol production with paper and particleboard processes, development of yeasts for fermenting of five carbon sugars, and pretreatments of wood to improve the rate and yield of enzymatic saccharification.

Dr. Rudie is the Project Leader for the Fiber and Chemical Sciences Research Work Unit at the USDA, Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, WI.  He has 28 years experience in pulping and bleaching process technology including 11 years with International Paper Company’s Corporate Research Center and 13 years on the faculty of the Institute of Paper Science and Technology.  At IPST, Dr. Rudie served as the Faculty Chair from 1998 to 2002 and chaired the Reaccreditation Committee that successfully renewed the Institute’s accreditation with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools in 2002.  Dr. Rudie received his Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1978.  He has expertise in mineral scale (trace metal) management, receiving the TAPPI David Whetherhorn Award for a paper in 2003 on process modeling of trace metals in mills and in 2006 for a paper on minimizing barium sulfate scale in bleach plants. Since taking the position at the Forest Products Laboratory 2003, Dr. Rudie has carried out research on prehydrolysis prior to kraft pulping for bleached paper applications and prehydrolysis prior to thermomechanical pulping for both newsprint and medium density fiberboard applications.  Dr. Rudie has served as principal advisor to 6 doctoral students, 12 masters students and has over 50 career publications.

Oct. 23, 2007: "Nanotechnology for the Forest Products Industry"

Theodore H. Wegner, USDA Forest Service

To America’s forest products industry, nanotechnology represents a major opportunity to develop new high performance multifunctional products, substantially reduce processing costs, and open radically new market opportunities. Nanotechnology provides the ability to dramatically transform the production of engineered wood and wood-based materials, create significant new applications for composite and paper products, and create new generations of multi-functional nanoscale lignocellulosics. At the same time, advances in genomics are allowing us to understand how wood, an orthotropic composite cellular material, is synthesized. Within tracheid cell walls, some of the cellulose is assembled into crystalline nanofibrils--whose properties can rival those of carbon nanotubes. We are now developing an understanding of how molecular and nanoscale cell wall components (i.e. cellulose, hemicelluloses, and lignin) are assembled; and how this architecture and self-assembly is controlled by the tree during growth and how nanoscale cell wall architecture in turn controls material properties. By understanding and influencing how these components and structures are assembled, we should be able to create novel, functional surfaces on existing cellulose substrates, create new or enhance existing products, and integrate nanoscale organization into new products. In addition, cellulosic materials, being one of nature’s most abundant polymeric biomaterials, have always been generally found to be a safe to humans.

To move nanotechnology ahead, The American Forest and Paper Association’s Agenda 2020 Technology Alliance (AF&PA Agenda 2020) created the first nanotechnology roadmap for the US forest products industry (March 2005, www.nanotechforest.org). Since then, AF&PA Agenda 2020 has created a nanotechnology task group, developed an industry forest products technology roadmap (July 2006, www.agenda2020.org) in which nanotechnology opportunities are identified. AF&PA Agenda 2020 has also formed a formal linkage to the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) and actively encourages nanotechnology research involving wood and wood-based materials. To further strength nanotechnology research involving wood, the USDA Forest Service has joined the NNI Nanoscale Science, Engineering and Technology Subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council Committee on Science. The Agenda 2020 Nanotechnology Task Group has prioritized six areas where nanotechnology is of greatest interest. These areas are: 1) improving the strength to weight performance of forest products; 2) developing commercially important wood-derived nanomaterials; 3) understanding and controlling water-lignocellulose interaction in order to modify wood and wood-based material properties; 4) modifying nanoscale surfaces and developing inorganic-organic nanocomposites; 5) exploiting the photonics and electronic/piezo-electric properties of wood; and 6) using nanomaterials and modifications to dramatically increase wood processing energy efficiencies.

Bio for Dr. Wegner

Dr. Theodore H. Wegner
Assistant Director
USDA Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory
Madison, Wisconsin 53726

Theodore (Ted) Wegner has been a leader in advancing nanotechnology within the forest products industry. He co-chaired the first US workshop on Nanotechnology for the Forest Products Industry and is co-editor of the "Nanotechnology for the Forest Products Industry: Vision and Technology Roadmap." He helped organize a National Science Foundation workshop on lignocellulosic nanotechnology at Georgia Institute of Technology (2005). He was co-chair of the 2006 and 2007 International Conferences on Nanotechnology for the Forest Products Industry (Atlanta, GA and Knoxville, TN) and is co-chair of the 2008 conference. He serves as Forest Service representative on the $1.44 billion National Nanotechnology Initiative. Wegner also participates on the Nanotechnology Task Group of the American Forest and Paper Association’s Agenda 2020 Technology Alliance. The Agenda 2020 Technology Alliance is an industry-led partnership with government and academia that holds the promise of reinventing the forest products industry through innovation in processes, materials and markets. Wegner has coauthored a number of papers on the role for nanotechnology in the forest products industry. Wegner holds Chemical Engineering degrees from the University of Wisconsin (BS) and the University of Illinois (MS/PhD). Prior to his joining the USDA Forest Service in 1977, he worked for E. I. DuPont de Nemours from 1972 -1977.