On August 3, 2015, Forest Concepts, LLC received a two-year, $499,997 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. The contract will support the development of predictive control systems for biomass dryers that will increase energy efficiency and provide significant cost savings. The technologies being developed by the project can be used in wood pellet and solid biofuel product, as well as in second-generation thermochemical biorefinery facilities producing biofuels and biochemicals. The development of this new drying technology will help to create cost parity with fossil fuels for biofuels by eliminating the system inefficiencies that currently impact biomass drying.

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