Synergistic routes to liquid fuel for a petroleum‐deprived future

Abstract

When compared with biomass gasification/Fischer‐Tropsch synthesis, hydropyrolysis/hydrodeoxygenation (HDO)‐based processes have a potential to achieve high biomass carbon conversion to liquid fuel with much lower amounts of supplementary H2. On the basis of this observation, we suggest a Hydrogen Bio‐oil (H2Bioil) process using fast hydropyrolysis/HDO that has a potential to produce nearly double the amount of liquid fuel when compared with the existing biofuel processes while requiring only modest quantities of supplementary H2. The optimal operating mode for the H2Bioil process is suggested to be in an entrained bed mode in presence of H2 with gas phase HDO of hydropyrolyzed vapors. A remarkable result due to reduced need for the supplementary H2 is that it provides synergistic integration of the H2Bioil process with a coal gasification power plant or a small scale steam natural gas (NG) reformer leading to a dramatic increase in the liquid fuel production from biomass and coal or NG. Here, hot synthesis gas (T>500°C) from a coal gasifier or methane reformer supplies H2/CO for hydropyrolysis and deoxygenation as well as heat for the process. This result is exciting, because it presents us with an option to build integrated H2Bioil processes sooner rather than later when the cost effective H2 becomes available from a carbon‐free energy source such as solar or nuclear. The H2Bioil process and its integrated version with a small scale NG reformer have strong potential to be attractive on a small scale while being more efficient than any current biomass to liquid fuel process in operation. © 2009 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2009

A review of recent laboratory research and commercial developments in fast pyrolysis and upgrading

“…Agrawal et al [47] and Singh et al [48] propose that increased conversion efficiencies could be achieved by a natural gas reformer or coal-powered power plant to a fast hydropyrolysis facility, with the former facilities providing H 2 /CO. This process was termed (the H 2 Bio-oil process).…”

Solar Energy to Biofuels

“…This yield is three times that of a self-contained gasification/FT process. However, the calculated H 2 consumption, which is based on the total diesel production, is 0.33 kg/liter of oil and could be considered quite high (78).…”

“…To identify processes with a lower supplemental H 2 demand, estimates of H 2 consumption to hydrodeoxygenate representative model compounds such as glucose (C 6 H 12 O 6 ), xylose (C 5 H 10 O 5 ), and coniferyl alcohol (C 10 H 12 O 3 ) via gasification/FT as well as HDO were made (78). For the HDO reaction, all the C-O bonds were substituted by C-H bonds and the displaced O atoms were converted to water.…”

The comparison of hazelnut shell co-pyrolysis with polyethylene oxide and previous ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene

“…Thermochemical conversion processes are widely studied for acquisition of valuable products from wastes [6][7][8]. Pyrolysis is a type of thermochemical process where generally solid material (biomass, coal and plastics) is subjected to preset various temperatures generally in inert or vacuum conditions for converting wastes into precious chemical products [8][9][10][11][12]. Products are inevitably solid, liquid and gas.…”