Virent and Virdia announced that they have converted cellulosic pine tree sugars to drop-in hydrocarbon fuels that can be used as gasoline and jet fuel, the latter reportedly having completed the United States Air Force Research Laboratory's tests.

"This fuel passed the most stringent specification tests we could throw at it (such as thermal stability) under some conditions where conventional jet fuels would fail," said Tim Edwards of the the AFRL. "This fuel is definitely worth further evaluation."

The fuel is produced using Virent's process for making fuels and chemicals out of sugars in cellulosic biomass.

This method, called "BioForming," uses a combination of catalytic processes to convert water-soluble oxygenated hydrocarbons from biomass to non-oxygenated hydrocarbons that can be used as drop-in compounds in gasoline, jet fuel and diesel fuel.

"The high-quality sugars generated from pine trees using Virdia's process leveraged Virent's conversion process, establishing a viable route to drop-in hydrocarbons from biomass," said Dr. Randy Cortright, Virent cofounder and chief technology officer.

Virdia's Cold Acid Solvent Extraction process, meanwhile, uses low-temperature, low-pressure hydrolysis coupled with closed loops of acid recovery and solvent extraction.

The project is part of the BIRD Energy project, a joint program funded by the Department of Energy, the Israeli Ministry of National Infrastructure, and the BIRD Foundation. This work is based on the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which includes cooperation between the U.S. and Israel on renewable energy and energy efficiency industrial research and development.

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