Patent ID: 7816570

Claim:
A process for the direct conversion of lipidic biomass to a transportation fuel, said process comprising: (A) performing thermal hydrolysis on a lipidic biomass to form a product stream comprising a free fatty acid and form a by-product stream comprising glycerol; (B) performing catalytic deoxygenation on the free fatty acid stream to form a product stream comprising an n-alkane; and (C) performing one or more reforming steps on the n-alkane stream to form a product stream comprising a mixture of hydrocarbon compounds selected from the group consisting of n-alkanes, isoalkanes, aromatics, and cycloalkanes; wherein, after step (C), the hydrocarbon compounds in the product stream are in a combination and ratio necessary to form an overall composition useful as the transportation fuel, wherein the process exhibits an overall energy efficiency of at least about 75%, wherein energy efficiency is calculated as the lower heating value of the produced transportation fuel over the sum of the lower heating value of the process reactants and total energy input into the process.