7-18: ASTM Committee E48 on bioenergy and industrial chemicals from biomass: International consensus standards supporting biomass conversion processes

Monday, April 29, 2013
Exhibit Hall
Bonnie R. Hames, Independent Consultant, Vice-chairman ASTM E48, BHames Consulting, Newbury Park, CA
ASTM International, the American Society for Testing and Materials, is a globally recognized leader in the development and delivery of international voluntary consensus standards.  For over 25 years, ASTM Committee E48 on Biotechnology has been center stage for the fundamental development of high quality standards for industrial biotechnology, agricultural biomass and renewable energy. To better reflect the priority activities in this committee, ASTM E48 has recently been re-named and is now the Committee on Bioenergy and Industrial Chemicals from Biomass. Within this committee, approximately 100 members from around the globe facilitate international harmonization of standards and methods supporting biomass conversion.

Current standards activities in ASTM E48 will be presented including activities in the following subcommittees

  • E48.05 Biomass Conversion: Developing standards related to characterizing and converting biomass to energy and industrial chemicals.
  • E48.91 Terminology: Establishing standard terminology for biomass conversion processes
  • E48-80 Sustainability of Bioenergy and Industrial Chemicals from Biomass: Developing standards as tools to aid in the evaluation of options for providing energy and industrial chemicals from biomass feedstocks
  • E48.48 US Technical Advisory Group to ISO Technical Committee 248: Developing Sustainability Criteria for Bioenergy

 These standards can be used to evaluate feedstocks, optimize reactors, assess life cycle impacts and determine process economics for bench-scale to commercial-scale processes. International commerce involving processes that convert the slate of biomass feedstocks proposed in the DOE Billion Ton Study will require the development, standardization and validation of hundreds of new analytical methods. Information on how to participate in this important effort will be presented.