Cool LPG – Providing a Drop-in Renewable Fuel for Heating, Cooking, and Transportation

Gases and liquid fuels are an important part of today’s global energy mix, and they are positioned to play a leading role in addressing hard-to-decarbonize sectors.

Within this broad portfolio of energy solutions, renewable LPG (r-LPG)—essentially renewable propane and butane produced using renewable resources—offers an option with significantly lower carbon footprint than traditional LPG.

GTI Energy is responding to this need by working with multiple global partners to investigate and develop technologies for the “on-purpose” production of r-LPG. Our Cool LPG technology converts biogas, bio-syngas, or biogenic carbon dioxide and green hydrogen into r-LPG, a clean-burning drop-in fuel chemically identical to fossil-based LPG. These feedstocks can be sourced from landfills, woody biomass, agricultural facilities, and wastewater treatment plants—even potentially municipal solid waste—and converted into r-LPG for cooking, heating, and transportation.

Cool LPG is set to be one of the lowest-cost, highest-yield technologies to produce clean r-LPG. This fuel supports cleaner air and enhances standards of living in historically disadvantaged and underserved communities in the U.S. and in developing nations around the world.

Today, the Cool LPG research team, based at GTI Energy’s laboratory facilities in metropolitan Chicago, continues to further refine the Cool LPG technology and accelerate its deployment for heating, cooking, and transportation.

The Net-Zero 2050: U.S. Economy-Wide Deep Decarbonization Scenario Analysis, developed by the Low Carbon Resources Initiative led by GTI Energy and the Electric Power Research Institute, finds that a broad portfolio of low-carbon energy technologies is needed for affordable, reliable, and rapid transitions of energy systems.

Learn More

GTI Energy Tech Talk: Delivering a renewable fuel for people across the globe

Watch Recording

Collaborating for Widescale Deployment

GTI Energy has licensed our Cool LPG technology to BioLPG, LLC—sister company to UN-backed NGO affiliate Global LPG Partnership (GLPGP)—to provide early-stage collaboration and build facilities in developed economies. A global consortium including Green LG Energy S.r.l of Italy, Friedrich Scharr KG of Germany, and rLPG North America is providing financial support. The consortium is focused on accelerating Cool LPG to market and providing the potential of r-LPG to commercial, industrial, and household LPG users to help meet decarbonization goals. Each of the members invested in the partnership represents dozens of energy entities across several countries, with a common goal to support access to clean energy and enhance quality of life.

BioLPG LLC logo
Global LPG Partnership (GLPGP) logo

Making a Global Impact

GTI Energy’s mission is driven by dual imperatives—the need to deeply decarbonize energy systems and supply the energy needed to support economic growth around the world. Access to low-cost and low-carbon fuels should be available to all communities everywhere. Renewable LPG can offer a clean alternative to disadvantaged, rural, and indigenous communities in the U.S. and in developing nations where r-LPG can be used as a healthy, reliable substitute for solid fuels, such as wood and charcoal.

GTI Energy entered into an exclusive global licensing agreement with the Global LPG Partnership (GLPGP)—a non-profit Public-Private Partnership backed by the United Nations—to aggregate and deploy Cool LPG to African countries to help them rapidly and sustainably transition to r-LPG for cooking. GLPGP’s vision is to help transition one billion people to the use of r-LPG for cooking by 2030.

News

The latest on Renewable LPG

Renewable LPG demonstrates GTI Energy’s long-term commitment to advancing actionable research and real-world technologies that support both global decarbonization and expanded access to low-cost, clean energy to improve quality of life around the world.

GTI Energy’s technical expertise and collaborative approach to partnerships drive important research outcomes that advance transitions to low-carbon, low-cost energy systems around the world.

Learn More or Get Involved
How does Cool LPG work?
  • GTI Energy’s Cool Liquid Petroleum Gas (Cool LPG) technology converts methane and ethane, as well as carbon dioxide (CO2) and hydrogen (H2) into LPG.
  • Using bio-sourced feedstocks, such as biogas sourced from landfills, agricultural digesters (animal waste and food byproducts) and wastewater treatment plants, CO2 from ethanol facilities, and H2 from renewable power electrolysis, the process can produce bio-LPG for use in cooking, heating, and transportation.
  • The Cool LPG process first converts the feed gases into synthesis gas, or syngas, which is converted into liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).
  • Cool LPG technology is designed to be one of the lowest-cost, highest-yield technologies to produce cleaner bio-LPG, which will help enable a global market for this clean fuel.
What is the difference between bio-LPG and LPG?
  • Bio-LPG is identical to LPG in appearance, performance, and application but produced using renewable resources and waste with a significantly lower emissions profile. Bio-LPG can deliver up to 90% carbon emissions reduction and carries the same low nitrogen oxide (NOx), sulfur oxide (SOx), and particulate matter as conventional LPG.
  • Because it is chemically identical to LPG, bio-LPG can be immediately deployed in any applications used by LPG. The fuel’s drop-in nature makes it an affordable and convenient decarbonization solution.
How is GTI Energy helping to enable a global market for bio-LPG?
  • Currently, manufacturing levels of bio-LPG only account for 1% of the global propane market. GTI Energy’s Cool LPG technology, once developed, can vastly expand production and access of this proven lower-carbon form of renewable energy.
  • Bio-LPG is also capable of being 100% blended, which eliminates the need for a separate supply chain, leading to more easily facilitated distribution of this valuable renewable fuel.
Who is BioLPG LLC?
  • BioLPG LLC develops and commercializes the production and use of green liquified petroleum gas (known as rLPG or bioLPG) produced from renewable feedstocks.
  • Their mission is to decarbonize LPG production at scale worldwide and efficiently access the latent energy in wastes and renewable biomass feedstocks. To learn more about them, visit https://www.biolpgllc.com/
What is the Global LPG Partnership?
  • The Global LPG Partnership (GLPGP) is a United Nations-backed Public-Private Partnership to aggregate and deploy global resources to help developing countries in Africa transition large population rapidly and sustainably to LPG for cooking.
  • To learn more about the GLPGP mission and work, visit https://glpgp.org/.
How is GTI Energy working with the Global LPG Partnership?
  • GTI Energy has entered into a licensing agreement with the Global LPG Partnership to provide bio-LPG solutions on the African subcontinent.
How does bio-LPG demonstrate GTI Energy’s commitment to supporting global decarbonization?
  • When compared to business-as-usual use of traditional solid fuels, bio-LPG has a significantly more climate-friendly emissions footprint due to full renewability and reduces carbon emissions by up to 80%, as compared to conventional LPG.
  • Replacing wood and biomass as a cooking fuel with bio-LPG will significantly reduce soot emissions, a fine particulate that absorbs sunlight, accelerates global warming, and contributes to premature deaths.
  • In fact, when used in a standard gas boiler, bio-LPG has the ability to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 70 to 80% against traditional home heating oil.
How will bio-LPG contribute to cleaner air and better health outcomes in Africa?
  • Household Air Pollution (HAP) causes close to 4 million premature deaths annually – predominantly in lower-income and middle-income countries.
  • In many developing nations, households still rely on animal dung and wood as cooking fuel. One 2013 World Health Organization (WHO) study found that death from the HAP sector contributes to 10% of global annual death.
  • Switching to cooking with bio-LPG, a direct alternative to biomass feedstock, would significantly reduce soot emissions that contribute to HAP.

Contact us about Cool LPG