The research and development projects, located in California and North Carolina, will focus on lowering production costs by maximizing the renewable carbon and hydrogen from biomass that can be converted to fuels and improving the separation processes in bio-oil production to remove non-fuel components. 

These projects, which are a part of the Energy Department’s continued effort to develop technologies that will enable the production of clean, renewable and cost-competitive drop-in biofuels at $3 per gallon by 2017, are as follows:

• SRI International of Menlo Park, California, will receive $3.2 million to produce a bio-crude oil from algal biomass designed to maximise the amount of renewable carbon recovered for use in fuel and reduce the nitrogen content of the product in order to meet fuel quality standards.
• Research Triangle Institute (RTI) of Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, will receive $3.1 million to maximise the biomass carbon and energy recovery in a low-pressure process, thereby lowering production costs, to produce a bio-crude oil that can be efficiently upgraded into a finished biofuel.