Mariefel Valenzuela Olarte
Mariefel Valenzuela Olarte
Ph.D. Candidate
Georgia Institute of Technology
School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering
311 Ferst Drive NW
Atlanta, GA 30332-0100
Office: 1358 ES&T
Labs: 1365 ES&T
Telephone: 404-385-2606
Fax: 404-894-2866
molarte@chbe.gatech.edu
University of the Philippines, Los Baños
B.S. Chemical Engineering, November 2001
Research Project:
“Design and Synthesis of Catalysts for Converting Woody Biomass into Hydrogen”
Advisors:
Christopher W. Jones and Pradeep Agrawal
Research Summary:
Biomass has been seen as one of the viable sources of fuel substitutes. Production of hydrogen from renewable materials is an attractive alternative to production from the now depleting fossil fuels. However, existing technologies such as steam reforming and gasification require high operating temperature and pressures. Aqueous phase reforming, a relatively new method that utilizes much lower temperatures, shows great promise in this field. Simple alcohols and oxygenated compounds such as ethylene glycol, methanol and sorbitol have been used as hydrogen sources for this process. Alkanes may also be produced when more oxygenated starting material like glucose is produced.
The challenge in this research is the production of hydrogen and other possible fuel substitutes directly from biomass. This entails the design and synthesis of functionalized catalysts that can breakdown complex biomass constituents (cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin) into simpler molecules for aqueous phase reforming.