A lot of hot air - EERC project advances biomass research

GrandForksHerald
By: Tu-Uyen Tran, Grand Forks Herald

Nikhil Patel is giddy with boyish enthusiasm as he describes the functioning of what is, essentially, a series of tubes at UND's Energy and Environmental Research Center.

In one end goes wood chips, garbage, tar-soaked railroad ties, lignite, grass, twigs, the meaty yuckiness that's left over from a poultry processing plant, and out the other end comes a substance not unlike natural gas.

The tricky thing is all that biomass varies in moisture, and moisture really messes up the even heating required in the gasification process, he said. The machine, which he helped design, would not only continually adjust the heat level to match the moisture level, but also make use of the moisture to create a cleaner burning gas, he said.

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