Wednesday, December 19, 2018

talkin' 'bout my generation: Making next-generation renewable biofuels competitive

Here is a recent blog post from Haldor Topsoe, written by Jostein Gabrielsen, R&D Senior Manager, Haldor Topsoe. As we transition from fossil fuels to renewables, companies like Haldor Topsoe are trying to figure out ways to make the transition economically feasible.

TIP #1: Subscribe to Haldor Topsoe updates. Visit https://blog.topsoe.com/, scroll to the bottom of the page, and check the box next to I want to receive email blog updates from Haldor Topsoe.

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Making next-generation renewable biofuels competitive
Biofuels are expected to play an important role in reducing our carbon footprint and make us independent of fossil fuel sources such as coal, oil and gas in the future. To make the change, it is crucial that we are able to produce sustainable renewable fuels at a price that can compete with that of fossil fuels. Exactly that is the goal of a very interesting research project, Haldor Topsoe is engaged in.
 
The Bio-crude Production and Upgrading to Renewable Diesel project will investigate innovative approaches to optimize an integrated, advanced biofuels process in order to produce sustainable renewable diesel at an attractive cost.

The chosen process is catalytic biomass pyrolysis integrated with a hydroprocessing unit. This type of process is generally considered an attractive route towards sustainable renewable fuels. It uses cellulosic feedstocks such as woody biomass, energy crops and agricultural and other wastes, making it a next generation technology.

The focus of the project is to:
1.maximize biocrude (also known as pyrolysis oil) yields in catalytic biomass pyrolysis by optimizing the physical and chemical characteristics of cellulosic biomass feedstock, in a commercially viable manner;
2.improve efficiency of the upgrading of biocrude to renewable diesel blendstock by splitting the liquid intermediate in fractions that are hydroprocessed individually.

By extraction and distillation, the biocrude is separated into three different streams of similar functionalities; a less polar aromatic fraction (light cycle oil – LCO), a pyrolytic lignin fraction, and a water-soluble fraction. The separation process as well as the proposed upgrading strategy is shown in the figure below.

Topsoe’s main contribution is to optimize the hydroprocessing steps shown in the blue squares.

The project takes an important next step in the commercialization of the technology by upscaling the catalytic biomass pyrolysis process, integrating it with a hydroprocessing unit, and demonstrating the long-term operation and performance of the integrated process.

Topsoe collaborates with RTI International who is developing the advanced biofuels technology that integrates catalytic biomass pyrolysis and hydrotreating to produce hydrocarbon-based biofuels. Idaho National Laboratory, National Renewable Laboratory, and Forest Concepts, LLC, are also involved as project partners.

The project is funded by the US Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

Topsoe already offers the HydroFlex™ process that is in commercial operation at refineries producing renewable diesel from vegetable oils, animal fats, and tall oil. The result is identical to fossil diesel on the molecular level. This means that the renewable diesel produced from the HydroFlex™ process can be used as a drop-in diesel without modification of standard car engines.
source: https://blog.topsoe.com/making-next-generation-renewable-biofuels-competitive?utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=68454394&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9XEmBakepGCLfIhAYGf2zMURlHEUin7aoISRlHACb9SbbpVQTcYVh3Sp8vjxz4vdu6zIZA-5nkWr-HrC4dVv614Zq9MA&_hsmi=68454394
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TIP #2: Extend your reach by Googling ® Jostein Gabrielsen.

Here is one result …

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Green Chemistry, Issue 22, 2016
Integration of catalytic fast pyrolysis and hydroprocessing: a pathway to refinery intermediates and “drop-in” fuels from biomass
Ofei D. Mante, *a   David C. Dayton, a   Jostein Gabrielsen, b   Nadia L. Ammitzboll  b   David Barbee, a   Sylvain Verdier b  and   Kaige Wang a 
Author affiliations
*  Corresponding authors
a  Energy Technology Division, RTI International, Research Triangle Park, USA
E-mail: omante@rti.org
b  Haldor Topsoe A/S, Haldor Topsøes Allé 1, DK-2800 Kgs, Lyngby, Denmark
Abstract
Single-stage hydrotreating (HDT) of loblolly pine biocrude produced from catalytic pyrolysis was conducted to gain insight to HDT performance in terms of product yields, liquid product quality, and hydrogen consumption. Tests were performed with a sulfided HDT catalyst at three different conditions. The longest continuous time onstream operation (365 h) was achieved at an average bed temperature of 290 °C, 138 bar pressure, H2/oil ratio of 3300 Nl l−1, and a liquid hourly space velocity (LHSV) of 0.25 h−1. The average carbon yield of the HDT liquids were 77%, 83%, and 89% for experiments 1, 2, and 3, respectively. Also, the biocrude carbon that ended up in the gas phase varied between 4.3% and 8.9%. The carbon in the aqueous phase fraction was negligible—less than 0.5% of the biocrude carbon. The average hydrogen consumed ranged from 0.04 g to 0.07 g per 1 g of dry biocrude. The highest carbon content measured for the HDT liquid products from all three experiments was 87.13 wt% and the lowest was 79.03 wt%. GC-MS analysis suggests that the HDT product with oxygen content less than 5 wt% contained mainly naphthenic hydrocarbons. On the other hand, HDT products with oxygen content greater than 5 wt% contained a higher concentration of simple phenols and aromatic hydrocarbons (mono- and poly-). Catalyst deactivation was evident in the quality of the HDT liquid collected over time; the density and viscosity increased, the H/C ratio and carbon contents decreased; also, the gasoline fraction decreased while the gas oil fraction increased. The results from this work suggest that HDT of biocrude produced by catalytic biomass pyrolysis can be successfully upgraded into hydrocarbon liquid fuels without a stabilization step.
source: https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2016/gc/c6gc01938b#!divAbstract
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