Mario Eden

An Auburn University team is finding new ways to develop renewable fuels and high-value chemicals from cellulosic biomass by revolutionizing a process originally developed in Germany in the 1920s. 

Led by faculty member Mario Eden, Joe T. and Billie Carole McMillan associate professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering, and Christopher Roberts, co-principal investigator and department chair, the team recently conducted studies that demonstrate how the Fischer-Tropsch process can be modified to produce large amounts of oxygenated chemical compounds that have a high intrinsic value in the marketplace. 

Additional research on biomass separation and gasification will be conducted by Steven Taylor, chair of Auburn’s Department of Biosystems Engineering, and Sushil Adhikari, a faculty member in the department who is also a researcher in Auburn University’s Center for Bioenergy and Bioproducts. 

Eden received a five-year, $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture for the project, “Fuel and Oxygenate Co-Products from Biomass Fractionation and Advanced Catalytic Conversion Processes.” 

From left, Bharat Singh of Fort Valley State University, USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture Director Roger Beachy, Auburn chemical engineering faculty member  Mario Eden and Michael Kane of the University of Georgia

“USDA and President Obama are committed to producing clean energy right here at home, to not only break our dependence on foreign oil, but also boost rural economies,” says Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. “These projects will give us the scientific information needed to support biofuel production and create co-products that will enhance the overall value of a biobased economy.” 

For more information about Eden's research and Auburn University’s Department of Chemical Engineering visit this page. 

For more on the 2010 National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s sustainable bioenergy grants, read here.