PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PIPELINE - COMMERICIALIZATION - 24 TO 36 MONTHS HYDROGEN PRODUCTION FROM ETHANOL OR GLYCEROL Our current focus in Bio-Fuel Hydrogen product deveopment, is the production of hydrogen from oxygenated hydrocarbons. Our two key products are: A.Crude ethanol (the filtered but not distilled fermentation broth obtained by the fermentation of very high gravity mash derived from wheat grains and composed of ethanol, lactic acid, glycerol, maltose, etc.), B. Crude glycerol (a by-product from the production of bio-diesel composed mainly of glycerol and free fatty acids). The initial phase of our project development was directed at developing the catalysts, selecting the feed stocks and developing the required design and simulation models for the reactor to produce hydrogen gas on various scales from small reformers to industrial sized process trains. The inputs to the CE process was concentrated crude ethanol from wheat grains (composed of ethanol (30% v/v, lactic acid, glycerol and maltose). The input to the CG process was crude glycerol a by-product from biodiesel manufacturing process (composed of glycerol and free fatty acids). A key goal was to develop proprietary intellectual property in the development of catalysts and reactors that will aid in the transformation using water as a reactant of these oxygenated hydrocarbons to hydrogen and carbon dioxide. The specific deliverables listed below have now been completed: Through the use of HTC’s newly developed family of catalysts, HTC has been successful in having oxygenated hydrocarbons steam reformed on the catalysts and separated in the membrane reactor into H2 and CO2 . The CE provides an eco-friendly technique to produce H2 from a biomass. Crude ethanol (i.e. fermentation broth) is a form of biomass, which is free of sulfur, has low toxicity, is safe to transport and store, and CO2 neutral. Concentrated crude ethanol can be produced commercially from grains or cellulose. There is strong agricultural industry interest for this process because using grains to produce energy via ethanol will add value to grain through demand creation. The catalysts, kinetics and reactor models for the CE processes have been developed. This process will be performed in the proposed multi feed-stock pre-commercial process facility using the membrane reactor represented in Figure above to incorporate CO2 capture. CO2 capture for the CE process provides environmental benefits by preventing CO2 emissions during the process and actually achieves a net reduction in atmospheric CO2 by extracting the CO2 emitted previously by other sources. (Click here for Published Papers on this process)