Baking biomass: Sundrop Fuels has built a solar gasification R&D facility in Colorado.
Sundrop Fuels
A solar-driven process could yield far more fuel than conventional biomass production.
Sundrop Fuels, a startup based in Louisville, CO, says it has developed a cleaner and more efficient way to turn biomass into synthetic fuels by harnessing the intense heat of the sun to vaporize wood and crop waste. Its process can produce twice the amount of gasoline or diesel per ton of biomass compared to conventional biomass gasification systems, the company claims.
Gasification occurs when dry biomass or other carbon-based materials are heated to above 700 ºC in the presence of steam. At those temperatures, most of the biomass is converted to a synthetic gas. This "syngas" is made up of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, which are the chemical building blocks for higher-value fuels such as methanol, ethanol, and gasoline.
But the heat required for this process usually comes from a portion of the biomass being gasified. "You end up burning 30 to 35 percent of the biomass," says Alan Weimer, a chemical engineering professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
A few years ago, Weimer and his research team began looking at ways of using concentrated solar heat to drive the gasification process. It worked so well that Weimer and Chris Perkins, the graduate student who came up with the idea, went on to cofound Copernican Energy to commercialize the approach. Copernican was acquired by Sundrop Fuels in 2008, and its solar-reactor technology is now at the heart of a 1.5-megawatt thermal solar gasification demonstration facility in Colorado.
The gasifier system consists of ceramic tubes that pass through a furnace. The gasifier is mounted atop a tower surrounded by a field of solar concentrating mirrors that reflect sunlight back to the furnace. As the biomass is dropped through the intensely hot ceramic tubes, it is vaporized into syngas.
Weimer, a former Dow Chemical engineer, says the system is "agnostic" to the types of biomass it can process. "It's like a sledgehammer because of the (1,200 to 1,300 ºC) temperatures it operates at," he says, explaining that conventional gasification uses lower temperatures to try to minimize the volume of biomass used to fuel the process. But keeping the temperature lower poses another problem. Gasification at temperatures below 1,000 ºC leaves behind tar. "And that tar is expensive to get rid of," says Weimer. "If you leave it in there, it will end up killing your catalysts downstream when you try to reform your product into (liquid) fuel."
A New Zealand company uses microorganisms to convert carbon monoxide into ethanol and plastics precursors.
The Coskata process makes ethanol, which is not an ideal fuel. Also, the ANL report did not assume that the Coskata process was integrated with the Westinghouse Plasma gasifier. I doubt that there is a 7:1 energy return on energy investment (EROEI) when the Coskata process is included with the plasma gasification process.
This solar-biomass process makes syngas which could be used to make gasoline or diesel. These fuels are compatible with our current infrastructure.
The solar-biomass process certainly seems like an interesting idea, but what's new about it? This process could have been done years ago. The problem is that it's expensive. (Building solar collectors, pressurized gasifiers, equipment to transport the biomass to the site, equipment to store, handle and inject the biomass into the gasifier, gas clean up equipment, and slurry-bed catalyst vessels for conversion to liquid fuels.)
All processes require a lot of equipment, but this one really requires a lot of equipment, and like other solar projects, the equipment only operates on average half of the time.
It'd be nice to see some cost estimates for a commercial facility (real cost estimates...not pie-in-the-sky like Coskata or Range Fuels) and it would be nice if this article mentioned what types of fuels they plan on creating in such a commercial facility. Anybody know? Sundrop Fuel's website says nothing. I mean nothing!!!
What I don't get, is why they want to get to fuel.
If they get Hydrogen mixed with CO, they could filter the CO out and get pure hydrogen. Make it a hygrogen plant.
I'm shure the economics for pure hydrogen would be beter than fuel/methanol. no?
At this time hydrogen is produced from methane gas, I think.
What do you think?
Probably because my Ford Mustang burns gasoline, not hydrogen. ;)
Yes I understand your point, but it seems to me that hydrogen is more valuable than gasoline. If this is right, this process could be made more economically viable when selling hydrogen (needed for some industrial processes) instead of gasoline...
And eventually could supply hydrogen fuelcells for electricity production.
Hydrogen is a bitch to work with at every stage of its cycle. The higher the hydrogen content in a process the more corrosive, dangerous and expensive the operation is.
Manufacturing in the United States is in trouble. That's bad news not just for the country's economy but for the future of innovation.
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sls1j
14 Comments
How does this fit.
I wonder how this fits into the article:
<i>Ajay Dalai, an associate professor of chemical engineering at the University of Saskatchewan, says powering gasification with solar energy has merit but could prove tricky. "When you're transferring the heat into the pipe, how do you make sure that it is distributed thoroughly through the biomass?" Controlling heat transfer and temperature levels will be key, he says.</a>
It seems to me that this is an attempt for "balanced" reporting, but really what is the point of even adding it?
Brian
http://www.tooele-homes.com
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arnetwork
85 Comments
Re: How does this fit.
It is added into the article because it's always a good idea to inject a little reality into alternative energy schemes.
Yes, under test conditions the approach can be made to work. But, as always, how will it work in the real world where you need to have consistent quality and quantity of output at high volume and under varying conditions.
As the article points out the current process only becomes really economical when conventional forms of energy are made to be more expensive. The energy cost of transporting raw materials for input are not included in the claimed economics or referenced carbon footprint.
Carbon pricing benefits only the output not the input. It penalizes the input. The more you get at one end the more you lose at the other.
Reply
sirpoon
2 Comments
Re: How does this fit.
We have to remember that oil production is subsidized as well. So apples-to-apples comparisons in the energy production biz is never 100% possible. I mean, do we start factoring in the cost of lives for oil wars? If so then oil has the highest cost, bar none.
On a different note, I wonder if salt water can be used. Fresh water for steam, unless I am misunderstanding the process, seems like one of the most unpredictable expenses going forward for something like this.
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