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Petroleum Engineering: Opportunities for multiple disciplines

By Robert Kallick

Oil keeps the world running, and petroleum engineers are the ones in charge of making sure that there's enough oil
produced to go around. For those who want to play an important role in making the world run, then a career in
petroleum engineering would be a wise choice.

Jobs in petroleum engineering are wide-ranging as the industry attracts both a number of engineers (petroleum,
chemical, mechanical) and business-oriented people, scientists, mathematicians and geologists.

"No wonder as the exploration and production of oil and gas is a truly interdisciplinary effort," says Margot Gerritsen,
assistant professor at the Department of Energy Resources Engineering at Stanford University. "Geologists, field
experts and computer experts work together to explore for new resources. Drillers, petroleum engineers, chemists
drill exploration wells and together with the geological team try to assess the existence of a new reservoir and its
potential."

While the number of students enrolled in petroleum engineering programs has grown since the 1980s (up to 3,700 in
2007), there is still a great need for people to join the industry.

"The field is in dire, dire need of people," says Gerritsen. "The workers are graying and a large fraction of current
employees is retiring in the next 5 to 10 years. So, the industry is desperate to hire new talent." While salaries are
high for jobs in PE (most start in the 6-figure range), the fact that the job takes you where the oil is can be a turn-off
for some people. Margaret Watson, communications manager for the Society of Petroleum Engineers says that over
141 countries produce oil and natural gas.

"The center of oil and gas production in the U.S. is Houston, but you will find people working in this industry in almost
every city," she says. "The concentrations will be found in places where there is a lot of oil and gas production. You
will also find petroleum engineers moving into renewable energy and managing companies, which expands the
possibilities even further. "For those who like to travel and meet people from around the world, PE can be a great
career path. The start of your career may bring you out in the field, but as engineers gain more experience, it's more
common to find them working from an office. As a petroleum engineer, Watson spent years finding oil and natural
gas, and analyzing how much it would cost to drill, complete a well, and have an operating facility to produce it
through.

"Working for the energy sector is one of the most exciting and rewarding careers," says Gerritsen. "Energy is, and will
increase to be, our biggest challenge. Supplying energy to a world that is increasingly energy hungry in a sustainable
manner is a first priority. Everything else depends on itfood production, water supply, etc."

Corn better used as food than biofuel, study finds


By University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Corn is grown not only for food, it is also an important renewable energy source. Renewable biofuels can come with
hidden economic and environmental issues, and the question of whether corn is better utilized as food or as a biofuel
has persisted since ethanol came into use. For the first time, researchers at the University of Illinois have quantified
and compared these issues in terms of economics of the entire production system to determine if the benefits of
biofuel corn outweigh the costs.

"The critical zone is the permeable layer of the landscape near the surface that stretches from the top of the
vegetation down to the groundwater," Kumar said. "The human energy and resource input involved in agriculture
production alters the composition of the critical zone, which we are able to convert into a social cost."
To compare the energy efficiency and environmental impacts of corn production and processing for food and for
biofuel, the researchers inventoried the resources required for corn production and processing, then determined the
economic and environmental impact of using these resources -- all defined in terms of energy available and
expended, and normalized to cost in U.S. dollars.

"There are a lot of abstract concepts to contend with when discussing human-induced effects in the critical zone in
agricultural areas," Richardson said. "We want to present it in a way that will show the equivalent dollar value of the
human energy expended in agricultural production and how much we gain when corn is used as food versus biofuel."

Kumar and Richardson accounted for numerous factors in their analysis, including assessing the energy required to
prepare and maintain the landscape for agricultural production for corn and its conversion to biofuel. Then, they
quantified the environmental benefits and impacts in terms of critical zone services, representing the effects on the
atmosphere, water quality and corn's societal value, both as food and fuel.

In monetary terms, their results show that the net social and economic worth of food corn production in the U.S. is
$1,492 per hectare, versus a $10 per hectare loss for biofuel corn production.

"One of the key factors lies in the soil," Richardson said. The assessment considered both short-term and long-term
effects, such as nutrients and carbon storage in the soil.

"We found that most of the environmental impacts came from soil nutrient fluxes. Soil's role is often overlooked in this
type of assessment, and viewing the landscape as a critical zone forces us to include that," Richardson said.

"Using corn as a fuel source seems to be an easy path to renewable energy," said Richard Yuretich, the NSF
program director for Critical Zone Observatories. "However, this research shows that the environmental costs are
much greater, and the benefits fewer, than using corn for food."

Better bacteria-busting techniques could make oil extraction greener,


cheaper
By Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)

Simple tweaks to oilfield practice could provide the offshore industry with a more sustainable, money-saving solution
to health and safety, environmental and commercial threats posed by harmful bacteria in subsea oil deposits.

Easy-to-implement, cost-cutting measures such as adjusting the water temperature used during oil production
could offer a way of tackling problems linked to sulphate-reducing bacteria (SRB) that is greener and more effective
than those currently relied on. SRB breathe sulphates but exhale toxic, corrosive hydrogen sulphide (H2S).

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is funding the research, which is led by
Newcastle University. The work involves a range of private sector, public sector and academic partners from the UK
and overseas.

First evolving billions of years ago, SRB thrive in oxygen-free, watery environments like those that can be found in
offshore oil deposits. The H2S they produce, however, is a key cause of reservoir souring, increasing the oils
sulphur content and so reducing its market value. H2S is also highly toxic, posing a potentially deadly hazard to
workers on offshore platforms, while its corrosiveness can damage pipelines and rigs, leading to oil leaks and spills.

As part of its work to understand how SRB some of which can lie dormant for very long periods become activated
in oil reservoirs, the Newcastle-led team is investigating the widespread practice of pumping seawater into an oil
reservoir to reduce temperatures and make extraction easier but which poses problems from a reservoir souring
perspective.

Seawater is rich in sulphates, which SRB use for their metabolism, says Dr Casey Hubert of Canadas University of
Calgary, who is leading the research in his role as Visiting Professor at Newcastle University. Our results suggest
that warming the injected seawater, so that the temperatures in a hot reservoir drop down to say 70C rather than
50C, could prevent SRB activity without significantly affecting the oil extraction process.

Industry has already shown substantial interest with additional funding secured from large supermajors in the oil and
gas sector.

One method currently used by the offshore industry to mitigate the impact of SRB in oil reservoirs is to inject nitrates
to stimulate the growth of another type of bacteria that out-compete SRB for food. The Newcastle-led team also see
major potential here to improve current practice and make it greener.

Were working on ways to predict more accurately the nitrate dose that will be needed in any particular context,
taking precise local conditions into account, Dr Hubert says. Adjusting the nitrate dose offers ways to better manage
corrosion risks associated with reservoir souring and in some cases could cut costs if lower doses could be used.
Our aim is to work with industry so that the nitrate souring control technique is understood thoroughly and sees
widespread use.

The project is also exploring whether the presence of heat-loving (thermophilic) bacteria on cold sea-floors might be
a tell-tale sign of the presence of oil reservoirs below. If so, mapping and tracking the distribution of such bacteria,
which might have seeped out of the reservoirs, could be a valuable, environmentally less invasive tool for oil
companies to use when seeking new reserves as well as helping to reduce the risk of unsuccessful drilling. Testing
of the idea is now beginning off Canadas Atlantic coast.

Dr Hubert concludes: Our overall aim is to identify ways of making oil recovery more environmentally friendly. If we
end up continuing to rely on fossil fuels for a few more years or decades then the imperative must be to meet our
energy needs efficiently and with minimum impact on the environment.

More efficient way to make oil from dead trees


By Guanqun Luo

The mountain pine beetle has destroyed more than 40 million acres of forest in the western United States. That
amounts to an area the size of Washington state that is strewn with conifers left for dead.

The beetles introduce a fungus that prevents critical nutrients and water from traveling within a tree. Beetles also lay
their eggs under the bark and the feeding larvae help kill the trees, sometimes within several weeks of the initial
attack. These standing dead trees can fall at any moment or add fuel to a wildfire, and scientists and land managers
are left scrambling to deal with millions of the precarious dead giants. Harvesting the wood for lumber is out of the
question, because the infestation stains the wood and causes the tree to crack on the inside.

A University of Washington team has made new headway on a solution to remove beetle-killed trees from the forest
and use them to make renewable transportation fuels or high-value chemicals. The researchers have refined this
technique to process larger pieces of wood than ever before saving time and money in future commercial
applications. They published their methods last month in the journal Fuel.

"We came up with a different way of converting wood into oil -- that's really the main accomplishment of this project,"
said senior author Fernando Resende, a UW assistant professor of bioresource science and engineering in the
School of Environmental and Forest Sciences.
"Not only do we want to reduce the costs, but we are hoping to increase the value of what we produce so we have a
better chance of making it commercial."

The process of heating wood and other natural materials at extreme temperatures to create oil -- called "fast
pyrolysis" is being widely explored in research labs across the country. Each system varies, but the general
process involves heating small pieces of organic material in an oxygen-free chamber at about 500 degrees Celsius,
until the solid material becomes a vapor. As the vapor rises and moves into other chambers, it cools and becomes a
dark brown liquid fuel. Scientists call this "bio oil," and it is already used in some European countries for heating
hospitals.

Researchers, including the UW team, currently are testing whether this bio oil can be upgraded by adding
substances called catalysts. This upgrade intends to convert the bio oil into transportation fuels that resemble
gasoline and diesel.

The beetle-killed trees are a good fit for making bio oil, Resende said, in part because the entirety of a tree becomes
extremely dry when it is killed by an infestation. That makes for a simpler fast-pyrolysis process, because it isn't
necessary to first dry the wood before heating it to extreme temperatures.

"If you can extract the wood and process it using fast pyrolysis, not only will you free up space and safety hazards in
the forest, but you also have the organic liquid that could potentially be used for products," Resende said.

The system developed by the UW can efficiently break down woodchip-sized pieces, though the team has
successfully turned an entire log into bio oil. Other fast pyrolysis systems must use small wood pellets 1 to 2
millimeters in length, which often adds an extra step of grinding larger pieces down to the appropriate size before
converting them to bio oil.

In the UW method, woodchips are placed on a rotating surface and a hot stainless steel plate moves down from
above, crushing the wood. The woodchips become hot from direct contact with the metallic surface, and the chemical
transformation from solid to vapor begins.

The researchers say this method could be used in mobile pyrolysis units so dead trees can be processed on site,
saving on transportation costs associated with moving large pieces of wood out of the forest. The mobile units
cylinder-shaped reactors that sit on a small flatbed truck are already being used for standard wood-to-oil
processing, and the improvements by the UW team could make the process more efficient and cost effective, they
say.

Transforming last night's leftovers into green energy


By Roy Posmanik

"Food waste should have a high value. We're treating it as a resource, and we're making marketable products out of
it," said lead author Roy Posmanik, a postdoctoral researcher. "Food waste is still carbon -- a lot of carbon."

The researchers show that by using hydrothermal liquefaction before anaerobic digestion, virtually all of the energy is
extracted from the food waste. In hydrothermal liquefaction, the waste is basically pressure cooked to produce a
crude bio-oil. That oil can be refined into biofuel.

The remaining food waste, which is in an aqueous state, is anaerobically digested by microbes within days. The
microbes convert the waste into methane, which can be used to produce commercial amounts of electricity and heat.
"If you used just anaerobic digestion, you would wait weeks to turn the food waste into energy," said Posmanik, who
works in both the laboratories of co-authors Jeff Tester, professor of chemical and biochemical engineering, and Lars
Angenent, professor of biological and environmental engineering. "The aqueous product from hydrothermal
processing is much better for bugs in anaerobic digestion than using the raw biomass directly. Combining
hydrothermal processing and anaerobic digestion is more efficient and faster. We're talking about minutes in
hydrothermal liquefaction and a few days in an anaerobic digester."

Food waste is the single largest component going into municipal landfills in the United States, according to the U.S.
Department of Agriculture. About one-third of the world's food -- nearly 1.3 billion tons -- is lost or wasted, according
to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. For all industrialized nations, food waste accounts for
roughly $680 billion annually. In addition, composting and digestion of food waste are inefficient and slow.

Putting hydrothermal liquefaction first in an engineering process and finishing with anaerobic digestion completes a
food-water-energy nexus, Posmanik said. "We must reduce the amount of stuff we landfill, and we must reduce our
carbon footprint. If we don't have to extract oil out of the ground to run cars or if we're using anaerobic digestion to
make green electricity, we're enhancing energy and food security."

The paper, "Coupling Hydrothermal Liquefaction and Anaerobic Digestion for Energy Valorization From Model
Biomass Feedstocks," was co-authored by Rodrigo A. Labatut, Pontifical Catholic University of Chile; Andrew H. Kim;
and former post-doctoral researcher Joseph G. Usack. It was published in the journal Bioresource Technology.

Could renewable 'power-by-wire' help fix Chinas air pollution


problems?
By Wei Peng

Bringing renewable power 'by wire' from western China to its power-hungry Eastern cities could have benefits for
both local air quality and global climate change, new research has found.

The study, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, examined if ongoing power transmission
capacity investment in China -- driven largely by concerns over air pollution -- could also reduce local adverse health
impacts from air pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions.

China is the world's top carbon emitter, and suffers from severe air pollution. It recently committed to improve air
quality and to peak its CO2 emissions by 2030. The research team carried out a quantitative evaluation of the
potential air quality, health and climate implications of long-distance energy by wire strategies.

Lead author Dr Wei Peng, from Harvard University, said: "We examined one possibility that could potentially address
both problems: using long-distance electricity transmission to bring renewable power to the polluted eastern
provinces."

"Using cutting edge atmospheric modelling and recent epidemiological data, we found that transmitting a hybrid of 60
per cent renewable power and 40 per cent coal -- known as hybrid-by-wire -- reduces 20 per cent more national air-
pollution-associated deaths, and decreases three times more carbon emissions, than transmitting only coal-based
electricity."

The study also found that, although transmitting coal power was slightly more effective at reducing air pollution
impacts than simply replacing old coal power plants with newer, cleaner ones in the east, both coal scenarios had
approximately the same carbon emissions.
Co-author Professor Denise Mauzerall, from Princeton University, said: "Our findings have several policy
implications. First, it's critical that transmission planning is coordinated with renewable energy use to maximise the
combined air quality and climate benefits from energy-by-wire plans. This sort of coordination can better exploit
renewable resources in remote areas, and maximize climate, air quality and health co-benefits."

"As many countries also need to expand transmission to support greater use of renewable energy, grid planners
should consider the air quality implications of investment in transmission capacity in order to increase the co-benefits
for health and carbon mitigation.

The researchers also noted that long-distance transmission could lead to other local environmental impacts from
power plants in the electricity exporting regions.

Professor Mauzerall said: "For example, relocating coal power generation to arid western regions could exacerbate
water scarcity. Alternatively, extensive development of hydropower may have major impacts on local ecosystems. It
is extremely important, therefore, that grid planners consider the overall impact of long-distance electricity
transmission on the environment at regional, national and global scales."

What's powering your devices? US consumers want to know when their


power is coming from renewable sources
By Christine Horne

Do Americans want to use more renewable energy?

Yes they do -- regardless of whether they're Democrats or Republicans, according to new research by Washington
State University sociologists.

Christine Horne, professor of sociology, and Emily Kennedy, assistant professor of sociology, published a study in
the journal Energy Policy that shows many Americans would prefer to power their homes with wind, solar and other
forms of renewable energy if given the option.

"Our work shows that U.S. consumers, regardless of political standing, age, or gender, want to use more renewable
energy and less fossil fuels," Horne said. "With new communication technologies, it is now possible to give them the
option to do it."

Utility companies have struggled for decades with the challenge of incorporating more renewables into the electricity
grid. Because demand for electricity fluctuates, utilities need to maintain generation plants that can be brought online
quickly to meet peak demand. These plants typically rely on fossil fuels.

In their study, Horne and Kennedy wanted to find out if energy customers would be interested in shifting the time they
run their appliances to reduce broad reliance on fossil fuel-based power plants, which could help decrease carbon
emissions.

They surveyed 234 U.S. consumers online to determine their interest in two hypothetical apps that would help them
either to lower their monthly power bills or to use more electricity generated by renewables.

Overall, respondents were equally interested in reducing their carbon emissions and saving money, the researchers
found. The study participants also reported far more positive feelings about a person who reduced her monthly
carbon emissions than a person who cut her monthly electricity costs.

Horne and Kennedy's study suggests giving consumers the ability to monitor where their electricity is coming from at
any given point during the day. This approach could be a viable addition to providing financial incentives and rebates
to lower electricity consumption and change usage patterns.
Work being done at WSU's Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture may make this possible. Horne and
Kennedy are collaborating with scientists there to develop an app prototype that would allow users to monitor in real
time whether electricity is coming from a renewable source or the burning of fossil fuels.

They hope the new app will help Americans lower their household electricity consumption and shift to using their
devices and appliances during periods when more renewables are powering the grid.

"The huge increase in available information and new communications technology makes it possible to provide
information to consumers like never before," Horne said. "For example, if consumers knew that during the day their
energy mix was 30 percent renewables, and at night it was 100 percent coal, then they might well run their
dishwasher in the morning when the sun is up instead of when they go to bed. We'd eventually like to link our app
with smart home devices so that people can program their appliances to automatically run when there are more
renewables in use on the grid."

Engines fire without smoke


By Sungwoo Park

By observing the soot particles formed in a simple flame, researchers at KAUST have developed a computational
model capable of simulating soot production inside the latest gasoline automobile engines.

Although today's passenger vehicle engines are cleaner than ever before, their exhaust can still contain significant
numbers of nanoscopic soot particles that are small enough to penetrate the lungs and bloodstream. This new
computer model should help car makers improve their engines to cut soot formation.

Gasoline engines are not traditionally associated with soot -- it's a problem usually linked with diesel vehicles. But
over the last decade, to boost fuel efficiency, manufacturers have made their gasoline engines more diesel-like,
adopting "direct injection" technology that sprays fuel directly into the engine cylinder.

"Sometimes you get fuel-rich pockets where there's not enough air for complete combustion or sometimes the fuel
hits the cylinder wall and forms a pool fire," said S. Mani Sarathy from the KAUST Clean Combustion Center, who co-
led the work. Both of these scenarios generate soot.

Working out how to minimize soot is a challenge because it is difficult to see inside an engine cylinder as fuel
combustion takes place. Sarathy and his coworkers tackled the problem by burning a chemically simplified "gasoline
surrogate" mixture in an experimental setup called a counterflow diffusion flame. By shining lasers into this open
flame, they could monitor soot and its precursors as the fuel burns. "These experiments have been done previously
with gaseous fuels, but this is the first time they have been done with gasoline-relevant liquid fuels," Sarathy said.

The team varied the composition of the fuel and observed particle production to build a model of the basic chemical
reactions through which soot particles form and grow. "Once we have this basic kinetic model that works well in
simple flames, we can utilize the model in an engine simulation," Sarathy explained. An engine combustion
simulation is essentially an ensemble of many tiny flamelets, which are combined to give a complete picture of how
soot is formed in an engine.

Car makers could use Sarathy's model in their own simulations to test whether changes, such as altering engine
geometry or the timing of fuel injection, might cut soot production. "We also have industrial partners that utilize the
model to see how different fuels and engine combustion strategies affect soot production," Sarathy said.

For future engine designs, the model will help manufacturers minimize soot before the engine ever rolls off the
production line.
Natural gas facilities with no carbon dioxide emissions
By Vienna University of Technology, TU Vienna

How can we burn natural gas without releasing CO2 into the air? This feat is achieved using a special combustion
method that TU Wien has been researching for years: chemical looping combustion (CLC). In this process, CO2 can
be isolated during combustion without having to use any additional energy, which means it can then go on to be
stored. This prevents it from being released into the atmosphere.

The method had already been applied successfully in a test facility with 100 kW fuel power. An international research
project has now managed to increase the scale of the technology significantly, thus creating all the necessary
conditions to enable a fully functional demonstration facility to be built in the 10 MW range.

It is much cleaner to burn natural gas than to burn crude oil or coal. However, natural gas has the huge disadvantage
that it generates CO2 during combustion, which has a detrimental effect on the climate. The CO2 is usually part of
the flue gas mixture, together with nitrogen, water vapour and other substances. In this mixed form, the CO2 can
neither be stored nor feasibly recycled.

"In the facilities we are working with, however, the combustion process is fundamentally different," explains Stefan
Penthor from the Institute of Chemical Engineering at TU Wien. "With our combustion method, the natural gas does
not come into contact with the air at all, because we divide the process into two separate chambers."

A granulate made of metal oxide circulates between the two chambers and is responsible for transporting oxygen
from air to fuel: "We pump air through one chamber, where the particles take up oxygen. They then move on to the
second chamber, which has natural gas flowing through it. Here is where the oxygen is released, and then where
flameless combustion takes place, producing CO2 and water vapour," explains Penthor.

The separation into two chambers means there are two separate flue gas streams to deal with too: air with a reduced
concentration of oxygen is discharged from one chamber, water vapour and CO2 from the other. The water vapour
can be separated quite easily, leaving almost pure CO2, which can be stored or used in other technical applications.
"The large-scale underground storage of CO2 in former natural gas reservoirs could be very significant in the future,"
believes Stefan Penthor. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also sees
underground CO2 storage as an essential component of any future climate policy. However, CO2 can only be stored
if it has been separated as pure as possible -- just as it is with the new CLC combustion method.

By separating the two flue gas streams, there is no longer any need to scrub the CO2 from the flue gas, thus saving
a great deal of energy. Despite all this, electricity is generated in the usual way and the amount of energy released is
exactly the same as that produced when burning natural gas in the conventional manner.

Several years have passed since TU Wien was first able to demonstrate on a test facility that the CLC combustion
method works. Now the big challenge was to redesign the process so it could be transferred to large-scale
installations that would also be economically viable. Not only did the entire facility design have to be revised, new
production methods for the metal oxide particles had to be developed too. "You need many tonnes of these particles
for a large facility, so the economic feasibility of the concept depends significantly on being able to produce them
easily and to a sufficiently high degree of quality," says Stefan Penthor.

The SUCCESS research project has been working on issues like this one for three and a half years now. TU Wien
has coordinated the project, involving 16 partner establishments from across the Europe, and between them, the
group has managed to resolve all the important technical questions. The revised facility design was based on two
fluidised bed technology patents held by TU Wien. "We've reached our goal: we've developed the technology to such
a degree that work on a demonstration facility in the 10 MW range can begin any day now," says Stefan Penthor.
However, that next step is not one for the research institutes; what is needed now are private or public investors. The
technology's success will also depend on political will and on the prevailing conditions within the energy industry of
the future. Additionally, this next step is also important because it is the only way to gain the experience necessary to
be able to use the technology on an industrial scale in the long term.

In the meantime, the TU Wien research team has already set its sights on its next scientific goal: "We want to
develop the method further so it can burn not just natural gas, but biomass too," says Penthor. "If biomass were
combusted and the CO2 separated out, not only would that be a CO2-neutral process, it would even reduce the total
amount of CO2 in the air. So you could produce energy and do something good for the global climate at the same
time."

Engineers manipulate water using only light


By Gibum Kwon

A new system developed by engineers at MIT could make it possible to control the way water moves over a surface,
using only light. This advance may open the door to technologies such as microfluidic diagnostic devices whose
channels and valves could be reprogrammed on the fly, or field systems that could separate water from oil at a
drilling rig, the researchers say.

The system, reported in the journal Nature Communications, was developed by MIT associate professor of
mechanical engineering Kripa Varanasi, School of Engineering Professor of Teaching Innovation Gareth McKinley,
former postdoc Gibum Kwon, graduate student Divya Panchanathan, former research scientist Seyed Mahmoudi,
and Mohammed Gondal at the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Saudi Arabia.

The initial goal of the project was to find ways of separating oil from water, for example, to treat the frothy mixture of
briny water and crude oil produced from certain oil wells. The more thoroughly these mixtures are intermingled -- the
finer the droplets are -- the harder they are to separate. Sometimes electrostatic methods are used, but these are
energy-intensive and don't work when the water is highly saline, as is often the case. Instead, the team explored the
use of "photoresponsive" surfaces, whose responses to water can be altered by exposure to light.

By creating surfaces whose interactions with water -- a property known as wettability -- could be activated by light,
the researchers found they could directly separate the oil from the water by causing individual droplets of water to
coalesce and spread across the surface. The more the water droplets fuse together, the more they separate from the
oil.

Photoresponsive materials have been widely studied and used; one example is the active ingredient in most
sunscreens, titanium dioxide, also known as titania. But most of these materials, including titania, respond primarily
to ultraviolet light and hardly at all to visible light. Yet only about 5 percent of sunlight is in the ultraviolet range. So
the researchers figured out a way to treat the titania surface to make it responsive to visible light.

They did so by first using a layer-by-layer deposition technique to build up a film of polymer-bound titania particles on
a layer of glass. Then they dip-coated the material with a simple organic dye. The resulting surface turned out to be
highly responsive to visible light, producing a change in wettability when exposed to sunlight that is much greater
than that of the titania itself. When activated by sunlight, the material proved very effective at "demulsifying" the oil-
water mixture -- getting the water and oil to separate from each other.

"We were inspired by the work in photovoltaics, where dye sensitization was used to improve the efficiency of
absorption of solar radiation," says Varansi. "The coupling of the dye to titania particles allows for the generation of
charge carriers upon light illumination. This creates an electric potential difference to be established between the
surface and the liquid upon illumination, and leads to a change in the wetting properties."
"Saline water spreads out on our surface under illumination, but oil doesn't," says Kwon, who is now an assistant
professor at the University of Kansas. "We found that virtually all the seawater will spread out on the surface and get
separated from crude oil, under visible light."

The same effect could also be used to drive droplets of water across a surface, as the team demonstrated in a series
of experiments. By selectively changing the material's wettability using a moving beam of light, a droplet can be
directed toward the more wettable area, propelling it in any desired direction with great precision. Such systems
could be designed to make microfluidic devices without built-in boundaries or structures. The movement of liquid --
for example a blood sample in a diagnostic lab-on-a-chip -- would be entirely controlled by the pattern of illumination
being projected onto it.

"By systematically studying the relationship between the energy levels of the dye and the wettability of the contacting
liquid, we have come up with a framework for the design of these light-guided liquid manipulation systems," Varanasi
says. "By choosing the right kind of dye, we can create a significant change in droplet dynamics. It's light-induced
motion -- a touchless motion of droplets."

The switchable wettability of these surfaces has another benefit: They can be largely self-cleaning. When the surface
is switched from water-attracting (hydrophilic) to water-repelling (hydrophobic), any water on the surface gets driven
off, carrying with it any contaminants that may have built up.

Since the photoresponsive effect is based on the dye coating, it can be highly tuned by selecting from among the
thousands of available organic dyes. All of the materials involved in the process are widely available, inexpensive,
commodity materials, the researchers say, and the processes for making them are commonplace.

New method to create the next fuel-efficient renewable energy developed


By Jotheeswari Kothandaraman

Scientists have long struggled with generating and storing hydrogen, the kind that might one day provide the
backbone for renewable energy fuel cells that make our cars move, warm our houses and help produce food, in a
way that also won't hasten climate change or otherwise harm the environment.

In research published earlier this year in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, chemists at the USC Loker
Hydrocarbon Research Institute outlined a carbon-neutral method for doing just that, with a little help from the
simplest alcohol known to man: methanol.

Senior author G. K. Surya Prakash, 1994 Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner Olah in his last major paper and their team
at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences devised a way to produce and store hydrogen from
methanol, without concurrent production of either carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide, by trapping it in organic
derivatives of ammonia called amines.

The well-known steam reforming process usually used to extract hydrogen from methanol, called the methanol
reformer, traditionally produces carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide as part of this extraction process. Carbon
dioxide is a greenhouse gas that causes global warming and ocean acidification.

The research demonstrates just one more way carbon has been freed from the cycle of creating and storing fuels via
methanol, supporting Olah and Prakash's long-standing vision of a completely renewable "methanol economy."

"The Methanol Economy" is a concept that the Olah-Prakash team first began refining in the mid-1990s, right after
the time Olah became USC's first Nobel laureate for his contributions to carbocations, the name that Olah himself
coined for ions that have a positively charged carbon atom.
According to Olah and Prakash, the goal of a methanol-based economy would be to develop renewable sources of
energy, led by methanol, that could mitigate the problem of climate change caused by carbon emissions, as well as
the U.S. dependence on other countries for energy, particularly oil.

The need to offset crude oil consumption has only grown in the intervening decades since Olah and Prakash began
their research. At that time, global consumption of oil was around 70 million barrels; that number is expected to be
about 100 million as early as next year.

Countries like China have already begun the transition away from petroleum. At the beginning of the century,
methanol use there was negligible but now accounts for more than 500,000 barrels each day, though much of it is
coal-based, which can create its own problematic carbon runoff.

The research of Prakash, Olah and their team has been focused on finding a way to extract hydrogen fuel from
methanol in ways that are not only carbon-neutral, but can even be carbon-positive.

Methanol, sometimes called "wood alcohol," is the simplest alcohol that can be produced, requiring only water,
carbon dioxide and energy.

While methanol stores half the energy of traditional petroleum-based gasoline, the light that burns half as bright also
burns more cleanly, with no soot, particulates or other residue. According to the Environmental Protection Agency,
the combustion of methanol also generally produces less deleterious greenhouse gases in the form of nitrogen
oxides.

Methanol quickly biodegrades. It has traditionally been produced from natural gas and can be corrosive to older
automobile tubing and casing, though much less so to newer generations of automobiles. Methanol is a more
efficient fuel to replace gasoline or diesel, but it provides fewer miles to the gallon because of its lower energy
density.

Methanol has also long been prized by race car drivers for its higher octane on shorter tracks and because it
produces clearer smoke, preventing pileups. Also, unlike typical petroleum-based gasoline, water is effective in
fighting methanol-based fires, though those clean-burning fires often appear invisible in daylight. However, additives
can also easily be added to methanol to increase visibility.

Methanol is also already employed in the raw chemical production of all petroleum-based chemicals and products.

In a testament to its elegance, simplicity and ubiquity, methanol naturally occurs in small amounts in Earth's
atmosphere, and there are even huge clouds of it floating in the star-forming regions of space. Olah, Prakash and
colleagues published research last year examining the differences between the formation of methanol both
terrestrially and extraterrestrially.

Prakash, who worked with Olah for more than 40 years, said "Olah was a giant of a chemist and a great visionary
who had a prophetic approach to solve tough problems. He had remarkable memory and was quite intuitive. He was
very well-read, he knew history and philosophy and appreciated music and the arts. He was a voracious reader. He
can be described as a Renaissance man."

Making oil from algae: Towards more efficient biofuels


By Shih-Hsin Ho
The mechanism behind oil synthesis within microalgae cells has been revealed by a Japanese research team. This
discovery could contribute to the development of biofuels. The findings were published on April 4 in Scientific
Reports.

The research was carried out by a group led by Professor HASUNUMA Tomohisa and Academic Researcher KATO
Yuichi, both from the Kobe University Graduate School of Science, Technology and Innovation.

During the 20th century the petrochemical industry developed rapidly, leading to depletion of fossil resources and
climate change on a global scale. In order to solve these issues and realize a sustainable and environmentally-
conscious society, we must make use of renewable biomass such as plants and algae.

The amount of biomass on Earth is approximately 10 times the amount of energy we currently consume. Roughly
half of this biomass grows in aquatic environments, and ocean-based biomass such as microalgae can produce oil
without using up arable land and drinking water.

Microalgae can grow with light, water, carbon dioxide and a small amount of minerals, and their cells divide quickly,
meaning that they can be harvested faster than land-based biomasses. Algae can also be harvested all year round,
potentially offering a more stable energy supply.

Many species of algae are capable of producing large amounts of oil (lipids), but this is the first time that researchers
have captured the metabolic changes occurring on a molecular level when lipids are produced in algae cells.

Focusing on marine microalgae, Professor Hasunuma's group found that Chlamydomonas sp. JSC4, a new species
of green alga harvested from brackish water, combines a high growth rate with high levels of lipids. The research
team developed an analysis method called "dynamic metabolic profiling" and used this to analyze JSC4 and discover
how this species produces oil within its cells.

Professor Hasunuma's team incubated JSC4 with carbon dioxide as the sole carbon source. 4 days after the start of
incubation, over 55% of cell weight consisted of carbohydrates (mainly starch). When saltwater comprised 1-2% of
the incubation liquid, the team saw a decrease in carbohydrates and increase in oil, and 7 days after the start of
incubation over 45% of cell weight had become oil.

JSC4 has a high cell growth rate, and the lipid production rate in the culture solution achieved a speed that greatly
surpassed previous experiments. At the start of the cultivation period starch particles were observed in the cells, but
in saltwater these particles vanish and numerous oil droplets are seen.

Using dynamic metabolic profiling, the group found that the sugar biosynthesis pathway (activated when starch is
produced) slows down, and the pathway is activated for synthesizing triacylglycerol, a constituent element of oil. In
other words, the addition of seawater switched the pathway from starch to oil production. They also clarified that the
activation of an enzyme that breaks down starch is increased in saltwater solution.

The discovery of this metabolic mechanism is not only an important biological finding, it could also be used to
increase the production of biofuel by improving methods of algae cultivation. Based on these findings, the team will
continue looking for ways to increase sustainable oil production by developing more efficient cultivation methods and
through genetic engineering.

Scientists engineer sugarcane to produce biodiesel, more sugar for


ethanol
By Haibo Huang
A multi-institutional team led by the University of Illinois have proven sugarcane can be genetically engineered to
produce oil in its leaves and stems for biodiesel production. Surprisingly, the modified sugarcane plants also
produced more sugar, which could be used for ethanol production.

The dual-purpose bioenergy crops are predicted to be more than five times more profitable per acre than soybeans
and two times more profitable than corn. More importantly, sugarcane can be grown on marginal land in the Gulf
Coast region that does not support good corn or soybean yields.

"Instead of fields of oil pumps, we envision fields of green plants sustainably producing biofuel in perpetuity on our
nation's soil, particularly marginal soil that is not well suited to food production," said Stephen Long, Gutgsell
Endowed Professor of Plant Biology and Crop Sciences. Long leads the research project Plants Engineered to
Replace Oil in Sugarcane and Sweet Sorghum (PETROSS) that has pioneered this work at the Carl R. Woese
Institute for Genomic Biology at Illinois.

"While fuel prices may be considered low today, we can remember paying more than $4 per gallon not long ago,"
Long said. "As it can take 10-15 years for this technology to reach farmers' fields, we need to develop these solutions
to ensure our fuel security today and as long as we need liquid fuels into the future."

Published in Biocatalysis and Agricultural Biotechnology, this paper analyzes the project's first genetically modified
sugarcane varieties. Using a juicer, the researchers extracted about 90% of the sugar and 60% of the oil from the
plant; the juice was fermented to produce ethanol and later treated with organic solvents to recover the oil. The team
has patented the method used to separate the oil and sugar.

They recovered 0.5 and 0.8 percent oil from two of the modified sugarcane lines, which is 67% and 167% more oil
than unmodified sugarcane, respectively. "The oil composition is comparable to that obtained from other feedstocks
like seaweed or algae that are being engineered to produce oil," said co-author Vijay Singh, Director of the Integrated
Bioprocessing Research Laboratory at Illinois.

"We expected that as oil production increased, sugar production would decrease, based on our computer models,"
Long said. "However, we found that the plant can produce more oil without loss of sugar production, which means
our plants may ultimately be even more productive than we originally anticipated."

To date, PETROSS has engineered sugarcane with 13 percent oil, 8 percent of which is the oil that can be converted
into biodiesel. According to the project's economic analyses, plants with just 5 percent oil would produce an extra 123
gallons of biodiesel per acre than soybeans and 350 more gallons of ethanol per acre than corn.

Ridding the oceans of plastics by turning the waste into valuable fuel
By American Chemical Society

Billions of pounds of plastic waste are littering the world's oceans. Now, a Ph.D. organic chemist and a sailboat
captain report that they are developing a process to reuse certain plastics, transforming them from worthless trash
into a valuable diesel fuel with a small mobile reactor. They envision the technology could someday be implemented
globally on land and possibly placed on boats to convert ocean waste plastic into fuel to power the vessels.

The researchers will present their results today at the 253rd National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical
Society (ACS).

A sailor for 40 years, James E. Holm says he has watched the sea and coastline become more and more polluted. "A
few years ago, I was sailing through the Panama Canal, and when I stopped at an island on the Atlantic side, I was
stunned by the amount of plastic covering the beach. I thought if I had a chance to do something about it, I should."
His partner, Swaminathan Ramesh, Ph.D., was driven by the desire and excitement of searching for a new "killer
idea" with the power to change the world. Ramesh took early retirement in 2005 from BASF after 23 years as a
research chemist and began looking for new opportunities. Ramesh formed EcoFuel Technologies and coupled his
chemical knowledge with Holm's concerns about plastic wastes and ocean pollution. In the meantime, Holm had
formed Clean Oceans International, a nonprofit organization.

They sought to optimize a technology that can use waste hydrocarbon-based plastics as a feedstock for valuable
diesel fuel. Their goal was to rid the world of plastic waste by creating a market for it.

For years, Ramesh explains, pyrolysis technologies have been used to break down or depolymerize unwanted
polymers, such as plastic wastes, leaving a hydrocarbon-based fuel. But the process usually calls for complex and
costly refining steps to make the fuel useable.

Ramesh set out to change the game and developed a metallocene catalyst deposited on a porous support material
that, coupled with a controlled pyrolysis reaction, yields diesel fuels directly without further refining. It is also cost-
effective on a small scale, runs at lower temperatures and is mobile.

"The catalyst system also allows us to perform the pyrolysis as a continuous-feed process and shrink the footprint of
the whole system," Ramesh says. "We can scale the capacity to handle anywhere from 200 pounds per 10-hour day
to 10,000 or more pounds per 10-hour day. Because of its small size, we also can take the technological process to
where the plastic wastes are." The whole system can fit in a 20-foot shipping container or on the back of a flat-bed
truck, Holm says.

The next step, they say, is to show the technology works well and that it can create a useable drop-in diesel fuel.
They will soon conduct a demonstration project for the government of the city of Santa Cruz, California. Officials
there are interested in implementing the technology to address waste plastics that currently cannot be recycled, as
well as to formulate diesel fuel the city can use for its vehicles, Holm adds.

"If we can get people around the world to pick this up and use it to shift waste plastics to fuel and make money, we
are winning," Holm says. "We can even eliminate plastic waste before it gets to the oceans by creating value for it
locally on a global basis."

Reusable sponge created that soaks up oil


By Edward Barry

When the Deepwater Horizon drilling pipe blew out seven years ago, beginning the worst oil spill in U.S. history,
those in charge of the recovery discovered a new wrinkle: the millions of gallons of oil bubbling from the sea floor
weren't all collecting on the surface where it could be skimmed or burned. Some of it was forming a plume and
drifting through the ocean under the surface.

Now, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have invented a new foam,
called Oleo Sponge, that addresses this problem. The material not only easily absorbs oil from water, but is also
reusable and can pull dispersed oil from the entire water column -- not just the surface.

"The Oleo Sponge offers a set of possibilities that, as far as we know, are unprecedented," said co-inventor Seth
Darling, a scientist with Argonne's Center for Nanoscale Materials and a fellow of the University of Chicago's Institute
for Molecular Engineering.

We already have a library of molecules that can grab oil, but the problem is how to get them into a useful structure
and bind them there permanently.
The scientists started out with common polyurethane foam, used in everything from furniture cushions to home
insulation. This foam has lots of nooks and crannies, like an English muffin, which could provide ample surface area
to grab oil; but they needed to give the foam a new surface chemistry in order to firmly attach the oil-loving
molecules.

Previously, Darling and fellow Argonne chemist Jeff Elam had developed a technique called sequential infiltration
synthesis, or SIS, which can be used to infuse hard metal oxide atoms within complicated nanostructures.

After some trial and error, they found a way to adapt the technique to grow an extremely thin layer of metal oxide
"primer" near the foam's interior surfaces. This serves as the perfect glue for attaching the oil-loving molecules, which
are deposited in a second step; they hold onto the metal oxide layer with one end and reach out to grab oil molecules
with the other.

The result is Oleo Sponge, a block of foam that easily adsorbs oil from the water. The material, which looks a bit like
an outdoor seat cushion, can be wrung out to be reused -- and the oil itself recovered.

At tests at a giant seawater tank in New Jersey called Ohmsett, the National Oil Spill Response Research &
Renewable Energy Test Facility, the Oleo Sponge successfully collected diesel and crude oil from both below and on
the water surface.

"The material is extremely sturdy. We've run dozens to hundreds of tests, wringing it out each time, and we have yet
to see it break down at all," Darling said.

Oleo Sponge could potentially also be used routinely to clean harbors and ports, where diesel and oil tend to
accumulate from ship traffic, said John Harvey, a business development executive with Argonne's Technology
Development and Commercialization division.

Elam, Darling and the rest of the team are continuing to develop the technology.

"The technique offers enormous flexibility, and can be adapted to other types of cleanup besides oil in seawater. You
could attach a different molecule to grab any specific substance you need," Elam said.

The team is actively looking to commercialize the material, Harvey said; those interested in licensing the technology
or collaborating with the laboratory on further development may contact partners@anl.gov.

Argonne scientists Anil Mane, Joseph Libera and postdoctoral researcher Edward Barry also contributed to the
development of the Oleo Sponge. Preliminary results were published in a study in the Journal of Materials Chemistry
A, titled "Advanced oil sorbents using sequential infiltration synthesis."

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