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Thermochemical Biorefining

A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "A: Sustainable Energy".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 January 2019) | Viewed by 43840

Special Issue Editor

Department of Energy, Aalborg University, Pontoppidanstræde 111, 9220 Aalborg, Denmark
Interests: biofuels; thermochemical processes; hydrothermal liquefaction; catalytic upgrading; circular use of resources; sector-coupling technologies; green carbon pathways
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Thermochemical biorefining holds enormous potential for sustainable production of carbonaceous chemicals and fuels; sustainable in terms of economic, environmental and resource efficiency. Within this scope, virtually all organic streams, be they wet/dry, virgin/residual, aquatic/terrestrial, flora/fauna-derived can be processed alone or in mixtures to intermediate platform chemicals and precursors, intermediate fuel products, such as syngas or bio-oils and, from there, efficiently converted to synthetic hydrocarbons or higher alcohols. However, challenges in implementation, process understanding, design and upscaling, identifying and alleviating bottlenecks in process flows, exist within all, as do significant challenges in establishing and documentating sustainability in its full meaning.

The scope of this Special Issue is to present the state-of-the-art within sustainable thermochemical biorefining for fuels and chemicals, and to highlight opportunities within sustainable processing realisable by these pathways.

Prof. Lasse Rosendahl
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • Thermochemical biorefining
  • Hydrothermal liquefaction
  • Pyrolysis
  • Gasification
  • Fischer-Tropsch
  • Synthetic fuels
  • Circular economy
  • Bioeconomy
  • Sustainability
  • Life cycle analysis
  • Biofuels
  • Biochemicals
  • Direct thermochemical liquefaction
  • Drop-in biofuels

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

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13 pages, 3073 KiB  
Article
Mild Hydrothermal Liquefaction of High Water Content Agricultural Residue for Bio-Crude Oil Production: A Parametric Study
by Yongsheng Zhang, Jamie Minaret, Zhongshun Yuan, Animesh Dutta and Chunbao (Charles) Xu
Energies 2018, 11(11), 3129; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/en11113129 - 12 Nov 2018
Cited by 18 | Viewed by 3445
Abstract
Depleting petroleum reserves together with the associated environmental concerns have intensified the exploration of alternatives to petroleum. Wet food processing wastes present promising bioresources for liquid fuel production via hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) followed by additional upgrading. In this study, tomato plant waste (TPW) [...] Read more.
Depleting petroleum reserves together with the associated environmental concerns have intensified the exploration of alternatives to petroleum. Wet food processing wastes present promising bioresources for liquid fuel production via hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) followed by additional upgrading. In this study, tomato plant waste (TPW) was utilized as a feedstock for the production of bio-crude oils via HTL at medium-temperature (220–280 °C) in water or a water–ethanol (17/3, v/v) medium in a 600 mL autoclave reactor. Effects of various operating parameters, such as catalysts (H2SO4 or KOH), reaction time (15–60 min) and reaction temperature (220–280 °C) on product yields were investigated. This study showed that a high yield (45.1 wt%) of bio-crude oil was achieved from HTL of TPW in water–ethanol medium at 250 °C in the presence of acid catalyst H2SO4. The oil, gas and solid residue (SR) products were analyzed for their chemical and structural properties. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Thermochemical Biorefining)
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23 pages, 1740 KiB  
Article
Continuous Hydrothermal Liquefaction of Biomass in a Novel Pilot Plant with Heat Recovery and Hydraulic Oscillation
by Konstantinos Anastasakis, Patrick Biller, René B. Madsen, Marianne Glasius and Ib Johannsen
Energies 2018, 11(10), 2695; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/en11102695 - 10 Oct 2018
Cited by 125 | Viewed by 9809
Abstract
Hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) is regarded as a promising technology for the production of biofuels from biomass and wastes. As such, there is a drive towards continuous-flow processing systems to aid process scale-up and eventually commercialization. The current study presents results from a novel [...] Read more.
Hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) is regarded as a promising technology for the production of biofuels from biomass and wastes. As such, there is a drive towards continuous-flow processing systems to aid process scale-up and eventually commercialization. The current study presents results from a novel pilot-scale HTL reactor with a feed capacity of up to 100 L/h and a process volume of approximately 20 L. The pilot plant employs a heat exchanger for heat recovery and a novel hydraulic oscillation system to increase the turbulence in the tubular reactor. The energy grass Miscanthus and the microalgae Spirulina, both representing advanced dedicated energy crops, as well as sewage sludge as high-potential waste stream were selected to assess the reactor performance. Biomass slurries with up to 16 wt% dry matter content were successfully processed. The heat recovery of the heat exchanger is found to increase with reactor run time, reaching 80% within 5–6 h of operation. The hydraulic oscillation system is shown to improve mixing and enhance heat transfer. Bio-crudes with average yields of 26 wt%, 33 wt% and 25 wt% were produced from Miscanthus, Spirulina and sewage sludge, respectively. The yields also appeared to increase with reactor run time. Bio-crude from HTL of Spirulina was mainly composed of palmitic acid, glycerol, heptadecane and linolelaidic acid, while biocrude from sewage sludge contained mainly palmitic acid, oleic acid and stearic acid. In contrast, biocrude from HTL of Miscanthus consisted of a large number of different phenolics. An energetic comparison between the three feedstocks revealed a thermal efficiency of 47%, 47% and 33% and energy return on investment (EROI) of 2.8, 3.3 and 0.5 for HTL of Miscanthus, Spirulina and sewage sludge, respectively. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Thermochemical Biorefining)
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Review

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40 pages, 3066 KiB  
Review
Bio-Based Chemicals from Renewable Biomass for Integrated Biorefineries
by Kirtika Kohli, Ravindra Prajapati and Brajendra K. Sharma
Energies 2019, 12(2), 233; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/en12020233 - 13 Jan 2019
Cited by 241 | Viewed by 14148
Abstract
The production of chemicals from biomass, a renewable feedstock, is highly desirable in replacing petrochemicals to make biorefineries more economical. The best approach to compete with fossil-based refineries is the upgradation of biomass in integrated biorefineries. The integrated biorefineries employed various biomass feedstocks [...] Read more.
The production of chemicals from biomass, a renewable feedstock, is highly desirable in replacing petrochemicals to make biorefineries more economical. The best approach to compete with fossil-based refineries is the upgradation of biomass in integrated biorefineries. The integrated biorefineries employed various biomass feedstocks and conversion technologies to produce biofuels and bio-based chemicals. Bio-based chemicals can help to replace a large fraction of industrial chemicals and materials from fossil resources. Biomass-derived chemicals, such as 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (5-HMF), levulinic acid, furfurals, sugar alcohols, lactic acid, succinic acid, and phenols, are considered platform chemicals. These platform chemicals can be further used for the production of a variety of important chemicals on an industrial scale. However, current industrial production relies on relatively old and inefficient strategies and low production yields, which have decreased their competitiveness with fossil-based alternatives. The aim of the presented review is to provide a survey of past and current strategies used to achieve a sustainable conversion of biomass to platform chemicals. This review provides an overview of the chemicals obtained, based on the major components of lignocellulosic biomass, sugars, and lignin. First, important platform chemicals derived from the catalytic conversion of biomass were outlined. Later, the targeted chemicals that can be potentially manufactured from the starting or platform materials were discussed in detail. Despite significant advances, however, low yields, complex multistep synthesis processes, difficulties in purification, high costs, and the deactivation of catalysts are still hurdles for large-scale competitive biorefineries. These challenges could be overcome by single-step catalytic conversions using highly efficient and selective catalysts and exploring purification and separation technologies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Thermochemical Biorefining)
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35 pages, 3243 KiB  
Review
Continuous Hydrothermal Liquefaction of Biomass: A Critical Review
by Daniele Castello, Thomas Helmer Pedersen and Lasse Aistrup Rosendahl
Energies 2018, 11(11), 3165; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/en11113165 - 15 Nov 2018
Cited by 202 | Viewed by 13131
Abstract
Hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) of biomass is emerging as an effective technology to efficiently valorize different types of (wet) biomass feedstocks, ranging from lignocellulosics to algae and organic wastes. Significant research into HTL has been conducted in batch systems, which has provided a fundamental [...] Read more.
Hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) of biomass is emerging as an effective technology to efficiently valorize different types of (wet) biomass feedstocks, ranging from lignocellulosics to algae and organic wastes. Significant research into HTL has been conducted in batch systems, which has provided a fundamental understanding of the different process conditions and the behavior of different biomass. The next step towards continuous plants, which are prerequisites for an industrial implementation of the process, has been significantly less explored. In order to facilitate a more focused future development, this review—based on the sources available in the open literature—intends to present the state of the art in the field of continuous HTL as well as to suggest means of interpretation of data from such plants. This contributes to a more holistic understanding of causes and effects, aiding next generation designs as well as pinpointing research focus. Additionally, the documented experiences in upgrading by catalytic hydrotreating are reported. The study reveals some interesting features in terms of energy densification versus the yield of different classes of feedstocks, indicating that some global limitations exist irrespective of processing implementations. Finally, techno-economic considerations, observations and remarks for future studies are presented. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Thermochemical Biorefining)
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15 pages, 272 KiB  
Review
A Review of Microwave Assisted Liquefaction of Lignin in Hydrogen Donor Solvents: Effect of Solvents and Catalysts
by Minghao Zhou, Junming Xu, Jianchun Jiang and Brajendra K. Sharma
Energies 2018, 11(11), 2877; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/en11112877 - 24 Oct 2018
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 2736
Abstract
Lignin, a renewable source of aromatic chemicals in nature, has attracted increasing attention due to its structure and application prospect. Catalytic solvolysis has developed as a promising method for the production of value-added products from lignin. The liquefaction process is closely associated with [...] Read more.
Lignin, a renewable source of aromatic chemicals in nature, has attracted increasing attention due to its structure and application prospect. Catalytic solvolysis has developed as a promising method for the production of value-added products from lignin. The liquefaction process is closely associated with heating methods, catalysts and solvents. Microwave assisted lignin liquefaction in hydrogen donor solvent with the presence of catalysts has been confirmed to be effective to promote the production of liquid fuels or fine chemicals. A great number of researchers should be greatly appreciated on account of their contributions on the progress of microwave technology in lignin liquefaction. In this study, microwave assisted liquefaction of lignin in a hydrogen donor solvent is extensively overviewed, concerning the effect of different solvents and catalysts. This review concludes that microwave assisted liquefaction is a promising technology for the valorization of lignin, which could reduce the reaction time, decrease the reaction temperature, and finally fulfill the utilization of lignin in a relatively mild condition. In the future, heterogeneous catalysts with high catalytic activity and stability need to be prepared to achieve the need for large-scale production of high-quality fuels and value-added chemicals from lignin. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Thermochemical Biorefining)
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