22 April, 2015
Contacts:
Karl Olsen, WSU IDX, kolsen@wsu.edu, 509-335-0373
Tammi Laninga, UI IDX, Laninga@uidaho.edu, 208-885-7117
Charles Burke, WSU NARA, ccburke@nararenewables.org, 509-335-3018
PULLMAN, Wash. – Students at Washington State University have developed facility site designs for a potential liquid depot in the Pacific Northwest. Liquid depots are intended to process forest residuals (wood from slash piles) into a liquid sugar. The liquid sugar can be used to produce multiple chemical products including biofuels. The group will present its designs and findings in a webinar at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, April. 29.
Participants may register at http://goo.gl/BqwO0C and sign in with the webinar at https://sites.google.com/a/idexstudio.org/class/live.
The students are working with the Northwest Advanced Renewables Alliance (NARA), a WSU-led organization determining the feasibility and sustainability of using forest residuals to produce biojet fuel and other products.
The students will describe the process of turning forest residuals into liquid sugar, transportation logistics, and how wastewater will be treated. A techno-economic analysis for the conversion process will also be included. The location for the sugar depot design project was identified as highly optimal based on a ranking process of Northwest U.S. facility sites completed by IDX last semester.
The students work together on real-world projects while attending the Integrated Design Experience (IDX) course that includes undergraduate and graduate students from a variety of majors at WSU and the University of Idaho.
“These students perform critical data gathering and analyses for the NARA project and for stakeholders”, said Karl Olsen, one of three IDX instructors and part of NARA’s education team. “Their work will be incorporated into a final supply-chain analysis for the ID, WA, OR and MT region in 2016.”
The NARA supply chain work performed by IDX over that last four years can be viewed at https://nararenewables.org/features/supply-chain-analyses.
Learn more about NARA at https://nararenewables.org/. Learn more about IDX at http://idexstudio.org.
Find this news release at WSU News online at http://bit.ly/1xfPwOm