Concerns about depletion of fossil fuels and energy security have increased interest in renewable energy sources. Biogas, generated from anaerobic digestion of organic wastes, has a relatively low cost and is considered to be a renewable energy carrier. There is an increasing interest in converting biogas to “green” transportation fuels. This fact sheet discusses the technologies that are curre...

Sulfur-containing compounds in transportation fuels are converted by combustion to SOx, which is a major source of acid rain and air pollution [1]. For environmental protection pur‐ poses, many countries have mandated a reduction in fuels sulfur level down to 10 ppm by 2009 [2,3], and with more and more stringent regulatory constraints, it is a trend to achieve little-to-no sulfur fuels in the ...

BACKGROUND Approaches to estimating and addressing the risk to children from fossil fuel combustion have been fragmented, tending to focus either on the toxic air emissions or on climate change. Yet developing children, and especially poor children, now bear a disproportionate burden of disease from both environmental pollution and climate change due to fossil fuel combustion. OBJECTIVE This ...

Advances in vehicle design and fuel quality mean cars can be made cleaner and more efficient. Lower emissions of carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulphur dioxide (SO2), particles (including the fine dust and soot PM10) and hydrocarbons (HCs) also known as volatile organic compounds (VOCs) will lead to better urban air quality and less summertime smog. Lower emissions of carbon dioxi...

Biotechnological techniques enabling the specific removal of sulfur from fossil fuels have been developed. In the past three years there have been important advances in the elucidation of the mechanisms of biodesulfurization; some of the most significant relate to the role of a flavin reductase, DszD, in the enzymology of desulfurization, and to the use of new tools that enable enzyme enhanceme...

n page 987, Yu et al. identify a novel cell death pathway that bypasses mito-chondria. The results indicate that various strategies exist to kill off neurons. A lot of the killing of sympathetic neurons occurs in the first week after birth. During that paring period, ‫ف‬ 50% of sympathetic neurons die due to a lack of nerve growth factor (NGF). Neurons deprived of NGF in vitro die through the c...

Fuel cells are receiving widespread attention as an alternate source for clean energy, and one of the most important developments are proton-exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) which operate using hydrogen at low temperatures. In the U.S., there is a considerable effort underway to develop H2 as the preferred fuel due to the potential for decreasing our dependence on imported oil, and the envi...

The Cluster of Excellence (CoE) ̈Tailor-Made Fuels from Biomass ̈ (TMFB) takes an interdisciplinary research approach towards new synthetic fuels based on biomass feedstock. New target-designed synthesis pathways, employing novel catalytic systems, reaction solvents and tightly integrated production processes, which embed intensified process units for fuel production, are considered to create new...

The overall objective of this project is to carry out the fundamental research needed to develop a first-generation, structure-based model of coal char formation and combustion. Current models of char combustion and carbon burnout estimate char behavior from empirical relations based on parent coal properties. With the wide range of fuels of interest to modern combustion systems (international ...

A review of conventional methods of production of hydrogen from fossil fuels is presented. Some advanced and unconventional methods of production of hydrogen based on fossil fuels are also presented. The general characteristics of the feedstocks used to produce hydrogen are first described. This is followed by the chemistry required to generate hydrogen. Then the chemical process operations and...