Assessment of Conversion Technologies for Bioalcohol Fuel ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

with regards to siting and permitting could streamline the demonstration and deployment of these technologies. Governments can also assist on the market side through policies and regulations that assure adequate markets for bioalcohols and coproducts and adequate returns on investments in production facilities. The recently funded DOE projects are intended to produce several demonstration projects by at least 2012. Other technology companies are planning to build commercial scale plants by this time. These expectations appear to be realistic assuming that the level of interest and funding continues to increase substantially. Among the 38 active technology developers profiled in this study are a number of promising candidates for potential commercial deployment. Included are both thermochemical and biochemical process approaches representing fundamentally different technology paths. Both approaches require and warrant further development emphasis and funding support, although most emphasis to date has been on the biochemical path. Thermochemical technology is the more emerging path, but appears to have certain advantages that suggest it deserves at least equal development attention. Thermochemical processes have the ability to convert virtually any biomass feedstock to bioalcohols or other biofuels, a particularly important feature for California and other regions with a wide variety of biomass feedstock sources of different compositions and qualities. The energy efficiencies and environmental characteristics of facilities employing thermochemical technologies appear attractive as well. Also, the thermochemical processes require much less biomass for economic viability, making them better suited for the distributed production of bioalcohols and electricity. The thermochemical technology with the highest probability for success is an integrated pyrolysis/steam reforming process. Current analysis suggests that a commercial plant utilizing this technology should be able to produce mixed alcohols at a cost of about $1.15/gallon for a 500 BDT/day plant, which would make this process competitive with traditional corn-based ethanol production. If market constraints to the use of mixed alcohols as transportation fuels prevail, then the further refinement of mixed alcohols to ethanol would add nominally to this production cost. The biochemical conversion processes encompass two primary approaches–acid hydrolysis/fermentation and enzymatic hydrolysis/fermentation. Biochemical conversion processes that utilize enzymatic hydrolysis of lignocellulose, followed by fermentation of the simple sugars are currently estimated to have an ethanol production cost of approximately $2.24/gallon for a 2,205 BDT/day plant. Projected improvements in biochemical conversion processes have the potential of reducing ethanol production costs below $1.50/gallon for 2,205 BDT/day or larger plants by 2012. Larger biochemical conversion plants can become viable when significant quantities (>2,000 tons/day) of biomass are available at feedstock costs below $35/BDT. An 56
initial attractive application may be to co-locate these plants with large, traditional cornto-ethanol production plants. Thermochemical processes can also be integrated with biochemical processes to supply electricity, heat (steam), cooling and the production of additional ethanol from waste materials. These integrated approaches are expected to increase plant energy efficiency, reduce emissions and increase economic benefits. The following R3D needs are identified for both thermochemical and biochemical technologies under development for producing alcohol fuels from cellulosic biomass: Thermochemical Processes The production of syngas from thermochemical conversion systems will need to meet certain compositional and purity standards to ensure acceptable catalyst efficiencies, selectivities and lifetimes for the efficient and economical production of bioalcohols. Thermochemical conversion systems are needed that meet the following specifications: ~100% energy conversion efficiency of biomass to syngas, with external energy input of ~25% of natural gas and electricity (or) ~75% energy conversion efficiency of biomass to syngas, using the syngas as a heating source for the thermochemical conversion system) Syngas that has >350 Btu/SCF energy content at ambient conditions (STP) Syngas that meets or exceeds the following composition specifications: H2+CO: CH4: CO2: N2+O2+Ar: C6–C16 Tars/Waxes (>C16): Sulfur and Chlorine: Particulate Matter (excluding Tar) : >60 mole% 15-25 mole%
Page 1 and 2:
Northern California Rice field Asse
Page 3 and 4:
APPENDIX 1. TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPER PR
Page 5 and 6:
LIST OF TABLES Table 1-Categories o
Page 7 and 8:
INTRODUCTION The State of Californi
Page 9 and 10:
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This report provi
Page 11 and 12: distributed production of bioalcoho
Page 13 and 14: from corn, sugarcane and other suga
Page 15 and 16: Table 1-Categories of Biomass Conve
Page 17 and 18: SECTION 2 - PAST CALIFORNIA BIOMASS
Page 19 and 20: the technological approach was too
Page 21 and 22: conversion technology at NREL, prep
Page 23 and 24: will use matching funds from the U.
Page 25 and 26: Report: Feasibility Study for Rice
Page 27 and 28: Environmental issues Market issues
Page 29 and 30: Presentation: Collins Pine Cogenera
Page 31 and 32: Syngas Production The thermochemica
Page 33 and 34: Alcohol Synthesis The direct synthe
Page 35 and 36: SECTION 4 - BIOCHEMICAL TECHNOLOGIE
Page 37 and 38: Feedstock Pretreatment There are a
Page 39 and 40: Achieving such cost reductions woul
Page 41 and 42: Another novel approach to bioalcoho
Page 43 and 44: have been run for a sufficient time
Page 45 and 46: concerns. This evaluation determine
Page 47 and 48: The data in Table 5 are based upon
Page 49 and 50: Thermochemical System (Electricity)
Page 51 and 52: SECTION 8 - OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALL
Page 53 and 54: For all of the biomass resource cat
Page 55 and 56: The above CEC and CBC inventories o
Page 57 and 58: Economic and Institutional Challeng
Page 59 and 60: SECTION 9 - GOVERNMENT ROLES AND IN
Page 61: SECTION 10 - CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMM
Page 65 and 66: SECTION 11 - REFERENCES Barrett, J.
Page 67 and 68: Collaborative, California Energy Co
Page 69 and 70: CATEGORY 1-THERMOCHEMICAL PROCESSES
Page 71 and 72: and CO at the compression stage. Th
Page 73 and 74: Range Fuels, Inc., Denver, Colorado
Page 75 and 76: CATEGORY II-THERMOCHEMICAL PROCESSE
Page 77 and 78: Figure A4. Enerkem Process Diagram
Page 79 and 80: The slag leaves the gasifier and is
Page 81 and 82: Figure A6. Thermogenics, Inc., Tech
Page 83 and 84: CATEGORY VIII-BIOCHEMICAL PROCESSES
Page 85 and 86: Figure A8. BlueFire Arkenol Technol
Page 87 and 88: Figure A9. BEI Process Celunol Corp
Page 89 and 90: support systems and using the conve
Page 91 and 92: several years ago, HFTA has been wi
Page 93 and 94: Figure A11. Losonoco Wood-to-Ethano
Page 95 and 96: OxyNol process. TVA is decommission
Page 97 and 98: Technology Characteristics-The biom
Page 99 and 100: Figure A14. PEC Biomass-to-Ethanol
Page 101 and 102: CATEGORY IX - BIOCHEMICAL PROCESSES
Page 103 and 104: Richland Washington, with U.S. DOE
Page 105 and 106: construction of which could begin i
Page 107 and 108: Figure A16. Iogen Biomass-to-Ethano
Page 109 and 110: commercialize a biomass-to-ethanol
Page 111 and 112: developed by CBE, is used to separa
Page 113 and 114:
Figure A19. DuPont Process BioGasol
Page 115 and 116:
Technology Characteristics-The Swan
Page 117 and 118:
CATEGORY X-OTHER BIOLOGICAL PROCESS
Page 119 and 120:
CATEGORY XI-INTEGRATED BIOREFINERY
Page 121 and 122:
CATEGORY XII-FERMENTATION OF SYNGAS
Page 123 and 124:
APPENDIX 2. CALIFORNIA ETHANOL PROD
Page 125:
Proposed Advanced Technology (Cellu
show all

Assessment of Conversion Technologies for Bioalcohol Fuel ...

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?