VTT Develops New Wood Gasification Method to Produce Biofuel, Chemicals
( VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland/Canadian Biomass) VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd has developed a new technique based on gasification, which offers a sustainable way to turn forest industry byproducts, such as bark, sawdust and forestry waste, into transport fuels and chemicals. The new technique reduces carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 90 per cent compared to fossil fuels.
The new approach uses gasification to turn biomass into intermediate products – liquid hydrocarbons, methanol or methane – in production units integrated with communal district heating plants or forest industry power plants. The intermediate products are processed further in oil refineries to make renewable fuels or chemicals.
VTT developed and piloted the new gasification process and evaluated the competitiveness of plants based on the technique in the course of a recently concluded project called BTL2030. The distributed generation process developed by the project team makes efficient use of the energy content of biomass. Approximately 55 per cent of the energy content is turned into transport fuels and a further 20–25 per cent can be used to provide district heating or to produce steam for industrial processes. The new technique reduces carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 90 per cent compared to fossil fuels.
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Gasification technology projected to have huge export potential
Experts estimate that, in addition to other measures, Finland will need sustainable biofuels to account for 30 per cent of the energy consumption of the transport sector by 2030. Supplying half of this demand with domestic waste would require 5–10 locally integrated energy production plants. The 3.6 per cent target set for advanced biofuels in the European Commission’s Renewable Energy Directive (RED2) equates to 11 million tonnes of oil, which would mean approximately 200 gasification plants in Europe alone.In addition to transport fuels, the biomass gasification technique can be used to produce renewable raw materials to replace oil and natural gas in various chemical industry processes. Synthesis gas applications, on the other hand, could help in the attainment of several circular economy goals, such as close-loop recycling of plastics and other packaging materials.
Research and development work to continue through EU projects
The development of gasification technology is set to continue through two EU Horizon 2020 projects coordinated by VTT. The projects focus on gas purification and increasing the efficiency of synthesis technology and aim to demonstrate the performance of the entire biofuel chain at VTT’s Bioruukki piloting centre in Espoo, Finland. Another solution under development is a flexible hybrid process based on biomass and solar and wind energy, which can either be run on just biomass or be boosted with electrolysis. This provides an efficient way to store solar or wind energy as a renewable fuel and could as much as double the renewable fuel output of the biomass sources available. READ MORE
VTT turn waste into biofuels and chemicals (European Biotechnology)
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