02 Jan UW's James Dumesic receives top scientific honor
Madison, Wis. – James Dumesic, a chemical and biological engineering professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has received a 2007 Scientific American “SciAm 50” award for his research into alternative fuels.
The magazine annually publishes a list that honors individuals and organizations who, through their efforts in research, business, and policy-making, are driving advances in science and technology.
Dumesic and his UW-Madison research team have developed a two-stage process for turning biomass-derived sugar into dimethylfuran (DMF), a liquid transportation fuel with 40 percent greater energy density than ethanol.
Currently, ethanol is the only renewable liquid fuel produced on a large scale, but ethanol suffers from limitations such as relatively low energy density and the required energy-intensive distillation process to separate fuel from water.
DMF has a higher energy content, and it consumes one-third of the energy required to evaporate a solution of ethanol produced by fermentation for biofuel applications.
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