LATENT ENERGY: Converting biomass into biocrude is easy but the thick, dark liquid defies standard refining
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Between the abundant availability of biomass and the extraction of useful energy is a yawning chasm — one into which many promising technologies have slipped and died. But now, the US multinational Honeywell appears to have a few ideas up its sleeve that may finally bridge this gap.
So why has biomass remained an underdog in renewable energy (apart from factors such as supply inconsistency and volatility of price)? After all, biomass is as much a hydrocarbon as petroleum and, indeed, petroleum and coal were nothing but ancient biomass. If hydrocarbons are natural sources of energy, why has biomass struggled?
Yes, biomass is energy-rich — but it carries a hidden complication: oxygen.
Oxygen, a great friend of life, isn’t so benign in biomass. Chemically bound oxygen atoms are extremely reactive; they latch on to all and sundry, forming undesirable molecules. In practice, this means they promote polymerisation — the tendency to form long, sticky chains.
Worse, oxygen makes the oil acidic and corrosive. Being hygroscopic, it grabs moisture from air and forms unstable emulsions. It interferes with combustion and reduces the energy density of the oil. It reacts with catalysts and deactivates them, turning expensive catalysts into useless lumps.
You may wonder why oxygen — so helpful in rocket engines — is a villain here.
The difference is that in rocket engines, pure oxygen is stored separately and mixed with fuel only at the time of combustion, where it serves as an oxidiser. But when oxygen is chemically bound to biomass-derived molecules, it causes all sorts of trouble: polymerisation, emulsions, instability and low energy density.
Converting biomass into biocrude — a thick, dark liquid faintly resembling petroleum — is not a big deal. But biocrude, as an energy source, is a lemon. Its high oxygen content makes it unstable, corrosive and incompatible with standard refining.
This is where Honeywell enters the picture. The company, better known for aviation equipment (including the famed blackbox) and industrial automation, is also a major force in energy technologies.
Honeywell UOP, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc, has developed a process that “upgrades” biocrude into drop-in fuels, which can directly replace conventional marine fuel, gasoline or sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) without any engine modifications.
According to the company, plant and agricultural residue can be converted into low-carbon biocrude right at the collection site, keeping transport costs manageable.
Honeywell’s new process then helps refine the biocrude at major facilities — much like any petroleum stream — to produce finished fuels. “For more than a decade, Honeywell has provided process technologies for renewable and alternative fuels using various feedstocks. The new biocrude upgrading technology is complementary to its renewable fuels portfolio,” the company says.
The core technology
The heart of the process entails neutralising the ill-effects of oxygen. This is accomplished by introducing hydrogen, which combines with oxygen to form water and exits the system, a step known as hydrodeoxygenation.
Hydrogen, however, complicates the picture. If the process uses conventional grey hydrogen, then the pathway is not fully green because grey hydrogen production involves significant carbon dioxide emissions. If green hydrogen is used, the pathway is clean — but expensive.
Yet Honeywell maintains that the overall process remains both green and economical. Ranjit Kulkarni, Vice-President and General Manager, Energy and Sustainability Solutions, Honeywell India, told businessline that the biocrude-to-fuel process is “cost-competitive”. This implies that the hydrogen required is not too much to make the fuel prohibitively expensive — perhaps because the initial biocrude production step (rapid thermal processing) already removes some oxygen, reducing the burden on hydrogen. And even when grey hydrogen is used, the lifecycle emissions are substantially lower than those of fossil fuels.
In response to businessline’s query, Honeywell said: “The biocrude upgrading technology does use hydrogen and the type of hydrogen used is based on the customers’ goals and needs.”
If Honeywell’s process succeeds at scale, it may well be the long-awaited bridge that brings India’s abundant biomass resources to the centre stage of clean energy.
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Published on December 15, 2025
