Decarbonizing our energy system means maximizing energy efficiency across all energy sectors, eliminating green-house gas emissions wherever possible, electrifying end-uses, and developing net-zero carbon fuels and chemicals. For the automobile industry liquid fossil fuels are increasingly being replaced by battery energy storage technology. But for heavy-duty transportation and aviation, where infrastructure and energy density considerations do not favor batteries, liquid fuels will continue to be the only viable energy source for the foreseeable future. There is, accordingly, a growing urgency to develop economically attractive technologies for producing sustainable fuels and/or chemicals.

PNNL’s latest developments include processes and catalysts for building, from mixtures of small intermediate molecules, the larger hydrocarbon molecules that are critical in fuels and chemicals. More specifically, PNNL’s technologies oligomerize mixtures of light olefins using a single step or reactor. The process step could be a potentially important part of various multi-step approaches for sustainably synthesizing valuable fuels and chemicals – approaches that include power-to-X and/or converting methanol into SAF. One key advantage of oligomerizing mixtures of light olefins derived from methanol is the ability to utilize a variety of feedstock resources such as municipal solid waste, captured CO₂, biomass, and natural gas – all of which can be converted to methanol via syngas.

PNNL’s patents related to oligomerizing mixtures of light olefins are available for nonexclusive licensing in certain fields of use. Interested parties should contact invention@pnnl.gov and reference “Battelle IPIDs 30219 and 32454.”