The four-year project is aimed at finding a cost effective, environmentally friendly way to produce bioethanol from agricultural, forestry or industrial waste products by utilising solar energy.
The project will use substantial quantities of fibrous waste including cellulose rich straw or recovered paper available within the UK rather than using food crops such as sugar cane.
EPSRC has awarded the funding to RGU experts Professor Linda Lawton and Professor Peter Robertson and University of St Andrews Professor John Irvine who are working on the project.
Researchers Lawton and Robertson said previous attempts to harness cellulosic waste have used extreme treatment conditions to release the usable sugars, with enzymes, acid and alkali explosion, wet oxidation and steam explosion being combined with high pressures and temperatures and such procedures are expensive, energy demanding and generate hazardous waste.
"What we are proposing is the production of bioethanol from cellulosic waste using photocatalysis combined with the fermentation process in a single reactor.
"Photocatalysis – the use of a catalyst to accelerate a photoreaction by generating free radicals – will be used to release sugars from the cellulose which will then pass through a semi-permeable membrane before being fermented to yield bioethanol," RGU researchers added.
The research program calls for the targeted design and synthesis of novel catalysts to achieve the maximum quantity of fermentable sugars; the screening of microbes for maximum production of bioethanol; and the design, fabrication, testing and optimisation of a reactor in which the entire process will be pursued.
Part of the EPSRC’s Supergen Bioenergy programme, the latest research approach has multiple advantages such as using a catalyst that is low cost, non-toxic, self-cleaning, recoverable and activated by harvested sunlight.
The Supergen Bioenergy programme brings together industry, academia and other stakeholders to focus on the research and knowledge challenges associated with increasing the contribution of UK bioenergy towards environmental targets.
Scottish Renewables policy officer Stephanie Clark said, "This project offers a fantastic opportunity to create energy from waste, without using energy to do so. We fully support the two universities in their fascinating research."
