Chemicals And Fuels From Biomass Via Fischer Tropsch Synthesis

Integrating technological development and business development rationales to highlight the key technological developments that are necessary to industrialize biofuels on a global scale, this book focusses on the key challenges that still hinder the effective biomass use and the realization of zero fossil fuel.

Catalysis, in the industrial production of chemicals, fuels, and materials, accounts for more than half of gross material production worldwide. Heterogeneous catalysis enables fast and selective chemical transformations, resulting in superior product yield and facilitating catalyst separation and recovery. The synthesis of novel catalysts has emerged as a hot topic for process and product development with numerous research publications and patents. Hence, development of efficient catalysts and their applications is important for sustainable energy production and use, green chemicals production and use, and economic growth. This Special Issue discusses recent developments related to catalysis for the production of sustainable fuels and chemicals and traverses many new frontiers of catalysis including synthesis, characterization, catalytic performances, reaction kinetics and modelling, as well as applications of catalysts for the production of biofuels, synthesis gas, and other green products. This covers the current state-of-the-art catalysis research applied to bioenergy, organic transformation, carbon–carbon and carbon–heteroatoms, reforming, hydrogenation, hydrodesulfurization, hydrodenitrogenation, hydrodemetalization, Fischer–Tropsch synthesis, to name a few. This book highlights new avenues in catalysis including catalyst preparation methods, analytical tools for catalyst characterization, and techno-economic assessment to enhance a chemical or biological transformation process using catalysts for a betterment of industry, academia and society.

Thermochemical pathways for biomass conversion offer opportunities for rapid and efficient processing of diverse feedstocks into fuels, chemicals and power. Thermochemical processing has several advantages relative to biochemical processing, including greater feedstock flexibility, conversion of both carbohydrate and lignin into products, faster reaction rates, and the ability to produce a diverse selection of fuels. Thermochemical Processing of Biomass examines the large number of possible pathways for converting biomass into fuels, chemicals and power through the use of heat and catalysts. The book presents a practical overview of the latest research in this rapidly developing field, highlighting the fundamental chemistry, technical applications and operating costs associated with thermochemical conversion strategies. Bridging the gap between research and practical application, this book is written for engineering professionals in the biofuels industry, as well as academic researchers working in bioenergy, bioprocessing technology and chemical engineering. Topics covered include: Combustion Gasification Fast Pyrolysis Hydrothermal Processing Upgrading Syngas and Bio-oil Catalytic Conversion of Sugars to Fuels Hybrid Thermochemical/Biochemical Processing Economics of Thermochemical Conversion For more information on the Wiley Series in Renewable Resources, visit www.wiley.com/go/rrs

There is increasing recognition that low-cost, high capacity processes for the conversion of biomass into fuels and chemicals are essential for expanding the utilization of carbon neutral processes, reducing dependency on fossil fuel resources, and increasing rural income. While much attention has focused on the use of biomass to produce ethanol via fermentation, high capacity processes are also required for the production of hydrocarbon fuels and chemicals from lignocellulosic biomass. In this context, this book provides an up-to-date overview of the thermochemical methods available for biomass conversion to liquid fuels and chemicals. In addition to traditional conversion technologies such as fast pyrolysis, new developments are considered, including catalytic routes for the production of liquid fuels from carbohydrates and the use of ionic liquids for lignocellulose utilization. The individual chapters, written by experts in the field, provide an introduction to each topic, as well as describing recent research developments.

This book provides an introduction to the basic science and technologies for the conversion of biomass (terrestrial and aquatic) into chemicals and fuels, as well as an overview of innovations in the field. The entire value chain for converting raw materials into platform molecules and their transformation into final products are presented in detail. Both cellulosic and oleaginous biomass are considered. The book contains contributions by both academic scientists and industrial technologists so that each topic combines state-of-the-art scientific knowledge with innovative technologies relevant to chemical industries. Selected topics include: Refinery of the future: feedstock, processes, products The terrestrial and aquatic biomass production and properties Chemical technologies and biotechnologies for the conversion of cellulose, hemicellulose, lignine, algae, residual biomass Thermal, catalytic and enzymatic conversion of biomass Production of chemicals, polymeric materials, fuels (biogas, biodiesel, bioethanol, biohydrogen) Policy aspects of biomass product chains LCA applied to the energetic, economic and environmental evaluation of the production of fuels from biomass: ethanol, biooil and biodiesel, biogas, biohydrogen

Potentially rising oil prices caused by an increasing relative scarcity of mineral oil have farreaching consequences for the transportation sector, the chemical industry and mineral oil companies in particular. As national laws in Germany require biofuels to be mixed into conventional fuel to an increasing extend (BioKraftQuG 2009), mineral oil companies need to identify economically competitive as well as technically feasible biofuel production processes to meet these requirements. A first generation of biofuels was introduced on a large scale but has been criticized for competing with the agricultural production of food and for yielding relatively modest quantities of fuel per hectare of agricultural land. For this reason, 2nd generation biofuel production pathways such as Biomass-to-Liquid (BtL), which convert lignocellulosic material into liquid hydrocarbons using Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, have been developed. While 2nd generation biofuels are superior to their 1st generation counterparts from a yield-per-hectare-perspective and cause less competition for agricultural soils, a significant disadvantage is the considerable investment required for the construction of Biomass-to-Liquid plants. The corresponding investment-related costs affect the competitiveness of 2nd generation biofuels negatively, leaving it in doubt whether BtL fuels could become an economically viable option. A frequently discussed way to improve specific investment-related costs is to increase plant sizes to improve economies of scale. While this improvement has been realized in several conventional kinds of plants like mineral oil refineries, power plants and Coal-to-Liquid plants, the application on BtL plants is complicated by the fact that larger plants are associated with higher specific biomass transportation costs. This is because a higher biomass input requires biomass to be transported over larger distances. The unresolved antagonism between economies of scale and specific biomass transportation costs has so far hindered the realization of BtL plants. The aim of this thesis is to develop a methodology to determine optimal BtL plant sizes by taking nonlinear factors into account. The methodology is required to determine a compromise between minimizing investment-related costs by applying economies of scale and minimizing specific biomass transportation costs by keeping the required transportation distances short. The optimal plant size is however influenced by a third influencing factor. Whether it is advantageous to transport biomass over a certain distance also depends on the value of a plant’s products. Biomass-to-Liquid plants can have a variety of product compositions depending on the catalyst and reaction temperature used in the biofuel synthesis reaction. Depending on which substances are produced and which are upgraded for sale, converted into fuels or combusted for electricity generation, both the value of the products and the required investment may differ considerably. While a number of processes, including biomass treatment and gasification, as well as the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis itself, are required for all considered plant setup alternatives, the choice of upgrading equipment may result in very dissimilar plant setups. By making the capacities of the individual upgrading processes the variables of the optimization model, economies of scale, specific biomass transportation costs and the products’ value are considered simultaneously for the first time. The thesis primarily focuses on the implementation of an optimization model and its application on a variety of scenarios. These scenarios are intended to represent different plant setups and logistics concepts. In order to assess the scale of differences in profitability, the essential influencing factors determining the profitability of BtL plants were included into the model calculations. As the problem at hand is neither linear nor quadratic, it cannot be solved reliably using established solvers for these two classes of problems. Instead, several solvers designed to handle non-quadratic nonlinear multidimensional problems were applied to find the most suitable way to approach the solution of the problem. The objective function has been designed to maximize the annual profit resulting from plant construction and operation. Maximizing this annual profit is subject to a number of primarily technical constraints. These result from the mass balances of the plant, its electricity demand and the specific requirements of individual processes. In addition to securing the validity of the mass balances, these constraints also ensure that the entire Fischer-Tropsch product stream undergoes some kind of upgrading, separation or combustion treatment. The sum of all processes producing salable products is used to approximate the required capacity of the plant as a whole. The total plant capacity then serves to calculate the investment required for the other plant processes and the costs for the purchase and transportation of the required input biomass. Biomass transportation distances are approximated by the radius of an assumed circular area from which biomass is supplied to the plant. Using cost functions that divide transportation costs into fixed and variable parts makes it possible to approximate the effect of rising specific biomass transportation costs in case of increasing plant capacities. The investigated scenario calculations suggest that under the assumed circumstances, fuel oriented low-temperature Fischer-Tropsch-based BtL plants are relatively competitive as long as the tax exemptions in Germany are maintained, but become significantly less attractive without them. By contrast, the combined production of both fuels and chemicals using hightemperature Fischer-Tropsch synthesis appears to be a more promising alternative, as chemicals are expected to earn a higher income in scenarios without tax exemptions. A third option, the production of Substitute Natural Gas, appears to be relatively uncompetitive unless methane prices rise significantly. In addition to comparing the economic attractiveness of different potential product distributions, a number of concepts have been investigated which are intended to improve Biomass-to-Liquid economics. Decentralized pretreatment of biomass, e.g. through fastpyrolysis, leads to larger optimal plant capacities, but the additional investment for the pretreatment units appears to overcompensate the improved economies of scale. By contrast, the combined use of train and road transportation was not assumed to be associated with additional investments. If train transportation is indeed feasible for a given plant location and specific biomass transportation costs are lower than for road transportation, combined traffic concepts should be used whenever possible. The construction of BtL plants in conjunction with mineral oil refineries is a way to reduce investment-related costs instead of transportation costs. While the resulting savings are significant for small BtL plants, they diminish if larger plant sizes are investigated. Cogasification of biomass with another input material is another way to reduce the costly transportation of biomass over large distances. Unless technical requirements significantly increase the cost of the gasification equipment, co-gasification concepts can improve the plant’s profitability even at relatively low quantities of a second fuel. The choice of fuels is however restricted by the Renewable Energy Directive that needs to be abided by in order to ensure the eligibility for tax exemptions. In case of lignite and hard coal, fossil CO2 emissions further complicate the application of co-gasification, as Renewable Energy Directive also limits the amount of fossil CO2 that biofuel production is allowed to cause. As savings caused by such concepts depend on the relative inefficiency of the concept that they are applied on, the effect of the implementation of several improvements diminishes if these address the same cost item. In this work, the nonlinear effects of economies of scale and biomass transportation costs for increasing Biomass-to-Liquid plant capacities has been modeled on a product-upgradingprocess basis for the first time. Potential investors and plant operators of Biomass-to-Liquid plants are thus enabled to determine both the optimal plant size and the most promising choice of products in order to maximize the prospective competitiveness of the plant.

Focusing on the conversion of biomass into gas or liquid fuels the book covers physical pre-treatment technologies, thermal, chemical and biochemical conversion technologies • Details the latest biomass characterization techniques • Explains the biochemical and thermochemical conversion processes • Discusses the development of integrated biorefineries, which are similar to petroleum refineries in concept, covering such topics as reactor configurations and downstream processing • Describes how to mitigate the environmental risks when using biomass as fuel • Includes many problems, small projects, sample calculations and industrial application examples