Energy Center at Purdue University

Maximizing the energy and carbon efficiencies of transportation could have a tremendous impact on greenhouse gas emissions and provide a sustainable energy future beyond oil. At Purdue University, scientists are engaged in systems-level, interdisciplinary research to: 1) make advanced drop-in biofuels from lignocellulosic biomass, 2) improve engine efficiencies in ground vehicles, 3) test biofuels in aviation engines, 4) improve the performance of electric and heavy hybrid vehicles, and 5) look for energy efficiencies in the transportation system as a whole.

Transcript

00:00:00 [Music] maximizing the energy and carbon efficiencies of Transportation could have a tremendous impact on greenhouse gas emissions and provide a sustainable energy future Beyond oil at Perdue University Indiana scientists are engaged in systems level interdisciplinary research to find solutions to these Grand challenges when

00:00:25 you look at Transportation there's only really one energy input and that is oil so 40% of the the energy inputs in the US come from oil and 2/3 of that is imported from foreign sources there are National Economic Security implications of that we have a a grant from the Department of Energy's office of science for an energy Frontier Research Center and biologists chemists and chemical

00:00:54 Engineers have come together to work on on using plant materials as a source of fuel for liquid Transportation fuels and what we want to do in this project is to be able to substitute that barrel of oil with a a barrel of ligis cellulosic biomass so so plant material that is sustainable and and renewable there are over 150 faculty at Purdue working at the energy center in Discovery Park the

00:01:23 university $750 million adjunct campus for interdisciplinary research science IST and Engineers are working to develop sustainable and Renewable Energy Technologies including C3 bio direct catalytic conversion of biomass to biofuels you start with a solid piece of biomass let's say a cornstock and you want to turn that into gasoline something you can put in your car and

00:01:50 and and the car will go problem is that the chemical structure of the biomass has the wrong composition we Heat this material up very quickly in the presence of of another compound hydrogen and the hydrogen reacts with the oxygen to take the the the oxygen we don't want away and what's left is gasoline like material the big advantage of the approach that we're on in the C3 bio is

00:02:14 that we're going to start from biomass we're going to turn that into fuel the fuel is combusted to make CO2 the biological process will take that CO2 back into biomass and we have a renewable resource for driving the energy needs of society two new biofuel are currently being tested for Aviation engines at the University they are Fisher tropes fuels and hydroprocessed

00:02:38 renewable jet fuels which are both approved for Blends up to 50% with jet fuel this test facility allows us to actually see how they operate in a in a jet engine as uh we see behind us and we could also examine and evaluate the exhaust emissions produced by the engine and we also have a laboratory up where we can see how the fuel interacts with materials to determine if there's any

00:03:06 negative impact on gaskets seals Etc students are also inspired to develop Innovative Technologies and seek careers in electric vehicles through the Perdue electric vehicle Grand Prix a Collegiate all electric go-kart race the uh EV Grand Prix is an event that we uh developed about two years ago uh in order to provide our students with the opportunity to have actual hands-on

00:03:32 experience in building some of the new electric vehicles of the future it's a excellent way to teach practical electrical mechanical engineering technology allowing students to take the classroom learning and put it into a very practical situation where they have lots of fun efficiencies are needed in engine performance heavy Vehicles also use fuel in braking

00:03:54 systems and can't break with an electric battery redesign is needed if hybrid Technologies are to be used in heavy Vehicles imagine we have improved the efficiency of bus by 50% the amount of energy saving we get by bus is equal to the same amount of energy we save by using 20 passenger cars so this is significant amount of energy that we can use by using this technology and

00:04:26 Improvement we can save approximately 15 billion gallons per year of fuel consumption and also 155 million tons of carbon dioxide emission systems approaches to Transportation are also being developed to highlight where the greatest efficiencies in energy consumption could be made terms their D if you synchronize traffic lights for example you can cut

00:04:53 down people's weight time now that makes them happier but it also causes them to use less Fuel and idling let's synchronize the lights let's make the lights support the best traffic patterns that helps cut fuel cost utility companies are very interested in the transportation getting mixed with the energy system so we're doing work with an Indianapolis utility company to

00:05:13 figure out how battery powered vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles are going to change load on the grid over the next few decades especially as as you get higher and higher penetration rates of these new types of vehicles scientists and Engineers are working to deliver fuel switching from oil electric and hybrid vehicles improvements in ground vehicle power and jet engine performance

00:05:34 the discoveries and Energy Research today will drive forward a new carbon neutral and energy efficient transportation system