Environmental Organic Chemistry and Technology (ENVOC)

Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University
Coupure Links 653, B-9000 Ghent
Tel 09 264 59 49
Fax 09 264 62 43
Contact:

Clean Technology

The research group ENVOC focuses on environmental chemistry and technology, and clean technology. With respect to clean technology, assessment tools are developed to learn how 'green' emerging technologies are. For example, to what extend are biofuels CO2-neutral? To what extend do they rely on non-renewable resources? The research group ENVOC has developed a thermodynamics-based technology to get objective information about this.

 

How Green is Biofuel Production Technology ?

It is important to realize that production of biofuels may entail hidden costs and energy expenditures. Each step, starting with crop harvesting, transport, mechanical processing, use of chemicals, transport to the consumer and use of the fuel, must be carefully scrutinized to see how much energy and pollution it entails. It is very important to determine if a process can be called renewable since it is undesirable to implement technology that further consumes our natural resources, or for which only a limited amount of resources are available (such as fossil resources). Only thorough evaluation of the complete process can reveal the hidden costs for man and the environment. Such a qualitative and quantitative evaluation will determine if it is beneficial for mankind to replace old technology by new 'green' technology. These findings are the basis for further optimization of production processes for biofuel and bio-energy production.

The ENVOC laboratory collaborates closely with multiple laboratories within UGent to evaluate emerging technology and methods for bio-energy and biofuel generation. Preemptive evaluation of technology, while it is still under development, guarantees that all drawbacks and potential weaknesses have been taken into account before upscaling and commercialization takes place.

Links:

Kimaat: Energie en Milieu Informatiesysteem voor het Vlaamse Gewest: Appendix: Gent 2005, press conference (PDF - 1,5 Mb)