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Opportunities and Obstacles in Large-Scale Biomass Utilization The Role of the Chemical Sciences and Engineering Communities: A Workshop Summary (2012) / Chapter Skim
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4 Fuels and Chemicals from Biomass via Thermochemical Routes
Pages 21-26

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From page 21...
... Pyrolysis produces ­ io-oil, a thick, b on marginal land, thermochemical conversion of those feedcorrosive mixture that in some respects resembles crude oil, stocks into fuels will be attractive. Algae may prove to be and charcoal, which can be used as either an energy source one of those feedstock sources, but algae also produce high or a carbon sequestration agent.
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From page 22...
... Department of Energy Office of Science. Gasification, Brown explained, is the thermal decomposi- ing of natural gas, which while not a renewable resource is tion of organic matter into flammable gases, using either a a domestic resource that would move the country away from bubbling fluidized bed reactor or an entrained flow gasifier imported petroleum and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to produce syngas.
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From page 23...
... Small facilities, located near the source of bio Other Pyrolysis Routes mass, could produce bio-oil that would then be transported to a centralized facility just as is done with petroleum today. Brown then briefly discussed two other types of The primary technical challenges facing fast pyrolysis, p ­ yrolysis -- catalytic pyrolysis and solvolysis.
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From page 24...
... claimed that they have produced diesel fuel directly via Brown concluded his talk by briefly discussing varicatalytic pyrolysis, and while this represents a big advance, ous approaches for upgrading thermolytic substrates, and the product still needs some upgrading before it can be used focused his remarks on the solubilized carbohydrates that as a fuel. The main challenge here is that yields are rela- can be produced.
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From page 25...
... He guessed that the optimal size for a plant that group also identified the need to develop methods for feedconverted thermolytic substrates into transportation fuels ing biomass feedstocks into reactors at pressure, to design would be somewhere in the 2000–3000 tons per day range catalysts that are more tolerant of the poisons in biomass although distributed processing facilities might be substan- and of water and steam, and to perform separations at lower tially smaller. energy intensity.
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Key Terms

  • fast pyrolysis
  • thermochemical routes
  • bitmapped uneditable
  • fluidized bed
  • aviation fuel

  • biomass feedstocks
  • gasification process
  • brown replied
  • sequestration agent
  • larger plants

  • technical challenges
  • direct liquefaction
  • corn stover
  • carbon sequestration
  • thermolytic substrates

  • distributed processing
  • capital costs
  • brown concluded
  • thermochemical route
  • heats biomass

  • biomass solids
  • using direct
  • fuel synthesis
  • questions natural
  • pyrolysis using

  • pyrolysis vapors
  • equilibrium pyrolysis
  • catalytic pyrolysis
  • biomass conversion
  • biomass sources


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