Tech Sheets SEVEN BERKELEY LAB ENERGY TECHS TO WATCH | Page 5
RENEWABLE
IONIC LIQUIDS
For Biomass
Pretreatment
BERKELEY LAB EXPERTISE
NANOTECHNOLOGY
©Nanosys, Inc.
BIOENGINEERING
PAIN POINT
BIO-BASED FUELS
AND CHEMICALS
Although biomass pretreatment with ionic liquids increases sugar monomer yield, the high cost to
manufacture ionic liquids necessitates almost 100% recovery across the pretreatment process.
SEMICONDUCTORS
SOLUTION
A Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) technology converts chemicals derived from lignin –
a low cost feedstock readily available from the biomass saccharification process – into
ENERGY EFFICIENCY
ionic liquids.
Photo Courtesy of Nanosys, Inc.
APPLICATIONS
• Biofuel production
• Catalysis
HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING
• Manufacturing of pharmaceuticals, chemicals, polymers, lithium ion battery additives,
and other products
• Paper pulping
BATTERIES
ADVANTAGES
• Facilitates cost effective use of ionic liquids for biomass pretreatment
• Enables commercially viable ionic liquid biorefineries
LIFE SCIENCES
DEVELOPMENT STAGE
Researchers generated four new room temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) capable of solubilizing
STATUS
Patent pending. Available for licensing or collaborative research. For more details on this
technology, go to http://ipo.lbl.gov/lbnl2013-042/
REFERENCE NUMBER
2013-042
CONTACT
Peter Matlock, JBEI Director of Commercialization
[email protected]
510-486-5803
L AWR E NC E BE R KELEY N ATI O N A L LA B O RATORY • [email protected]
All photos ©The Regents of the University of California through Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, except as noted.
lignin for the pretreatment of lignocellulose.
SENSORS/DETECTORS
BIO-BASED FUELS & CHEMICALS
IMAGING
SOFTWARE
SUBSURFACE