(670e) Development of a Biomass Liquefaction Process for Stabilized Refinery Ready Bio-Oils

Development of a Biomass Liquefaction Process for Stabilized Refinery-Ready Bio-Oils

Santosh K Gangwal, Kevin McCabe, Andrew Campos, and Demps Pettway

Southern Research Institute, 5201 International Drive, Durham, NC 27712

Previous attempts to scale up and commercialize biomass liquefaction processes, such as PERC, LBL, and Shell HTU have not been successful due to severe process conditions and a lack of focus on both the process and product.  The goal of this work is to commercialize a cost-effective low severity thermal liquefaction process to convert woody biomass to stabilized bio-oils that can be directly blended with petroleum refinery hydrotreater/cracker streams for production of gasoline and diesel range hydrocarbons.  The low severity and cost is being achieved by using mild conditions, maximizing the solids processing, minimizing catalyst use, and minimizing wasted organics.  The process has been demonstrated at laboratory scale (50 g/h).  Several laboratory scale tests of the process have been conducted over a range of statistically designed test conditions.  The results of these tests show that there is significant effect of reaction conditions on biomass conversion and bio-oil yield.  At optimum reaction and separation conditions, 98 % of the biomass was converted and over 55 % of the biomass was converted to stabilized bio-oil.  A plan is being developed in partnership with a refinery partner to move the technology towards commercialization.   Bio-oil samples in sufficient quantities will be produced and sent to the refinery partner for characterization, and for evaluating the potential of direct blending of the bio-oils with their hydrotreater/cracker input streams.  Scale up of the process to 2 kg/h has been planned.  A technical and economic analysis and life-cycle assessment of the process is being carried out.