U.S. DOE Grants $1,500,000 To University Of Maine For Biomass Fuel Conversion

U.S. DOE has awarded more than $1,500,000 US in federal funding to the University of Maine to advance the university's ongoing efforts to develop methods for converting biomass from Maine's forests into fuels and valuable chemicals. The state will contribute 50 percent in matching funds to the project through the Maine Economic Improvement Fund. "This project adds the thermal conversion pathway to our earlier biochemical conversion focus for the utilization of woody biomass to produce biofuels and other co-products," says Hemant Pendse, Chair of U. of Maine's Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. The money, which was awarded through the DOE's Experimental Programs to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), will be added to the $6,900,000 US the Forest Bioproducts Research Initiative (FBRI) received previously as part of the National Science Foundation's EPSCoR award in 2006. (Source: University of Maine, Apr. 05, '07)

Contact: Hemant Pendse, Chair, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of Maine, telephone: (207 581-2283, email: pendse@maine.edu, www.umaine.edu. Forest Bioproducts Research Initiative, telephone: (207) 581-1431, email: forestbioproducts@umit.maine.edu, www.forestbioproducts.umaine.edu. Kristen Bennett, Program Manager, EPSCoR, telephone: (301) 903 4269, email: Kristin.Bennett@science.doe.gov, www.sc.doe.gov/bes/EPSCoR/