News

Center for Biorefining and Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering successfully hosted 2023 IFT-EFFoST International Nonthermal Processing Workshop and Short Course.

Professor Roger Ruan, PhD, has been named a National Academy of Inventors (NAI) Fellow and will be inducted into the NAI at the academy’s annual meeting in June 2024.

Professor Ruan was among the Minnesota Observers at the COP26 Climate Summit at Glasgow between November 7 and 12, 2021.  He shared his impression of the meeting and also his reflection on how technology development can help achieve the goal in an article published on BBE's website. Here is the link to the article:

https://bbe.umn.edu/news/cop26-reflection

Researchers at the Center for Biorefining received $1 million grant from Xcel Energy RDF program. The three years project, led by Drs. Roger Ruan and Paul Chen, is aimed to develop and demonstrate innovative technology to convert Minnesota biomass to renewable electricity. The core of the proposed technology is fast microwave assisted gasification (fMAG). In the past, the researchers focused on microwave assisted pyrolysis of biomass, whose primary product is liquid fuel. Unlike biomass incineration, biomass gasification is cleaner and more efficient, and the produced syngas offers greater flexibility and applications in a wider varieties of power generation methods. In addition, gasification technology can be operated in scales suitable for distributed/decentralized power generation, and hence compatible with the distributed nature of biomass feedstock production. The key deliverable of the project is the construction and demonstration of a biomass to electricity equipment upon completion of the project.