Abstract
This work shows preliminary results from techno-economic analysis and life cycle greenhouse gas analysis of the conversion of seven (7) biomass feedstocks to produce liquid transportation fuels via fast pyrolysis and upgrading via hydrodeoxygenation. The biomass consists of five (5) pure feeds (pine, tulip poplar, hybrid poplar, switchgrass, corn stover) and two blends. Blend 1 consists of equal weights of pine, tulip poplar, and switchgrass, and blend 2 is 67% pine and 33% hybrid poplar. Upgraded oil product yield is one of the most significant parameters affecting the process economics, and is a function of both fast pyrolysis oil yield and hydrotreating oil yield. Pure pine produced the highest overall yield, while switchgrass produced the lowest. Interestingly, herbaceous materials blended with woody biomass performed nearly as well as pure woody feedstock, suggesting a nontrivial relationship between feedstock attributes and production yield. Production costs are also highly dependent upon hydrotreating catalyst-related costs. The catalysts contribute an average of ∼15% to the total fuel cost, which can be reduced through research and development focused on achieving performance at increased space velocity (e.g., reduced catalyst loading) and prolonging catalyst lifetime. Greenhouse gas reduction does not necessarily align with favorable economics. From the greenhouse gas analysis, processing tulip poplar achieves the largest greenhouse gas emission reduction relative to petroleum (∼70%) because of its lower natural gas requirement for hydrogen production. Conversely, processing blend 1 results in the smallest GHG emission reduction from petroleum (∼58%) because of high natural gas demand for hydrogen production.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 9427-9439 |
Number of pages | 13 |
Journal | Energy and Fuels |
Volume | 30 |
Issue number | 11 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Nov 17 2016 |
Externally published | Yes |
Funding
The manuscript preparation work at PNNL was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC05-76RL01830 at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The PNNL authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the Department of Energy Bioenergy Technologies Office. We also thank Daniel Howe (at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory) and Daniel Carpenter (at National Renewable Energy Laboratory) for providing additional information describing the fast pyrolysis and hydrotreating experiment.
Funders | Funder number |
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U.S. Department of Energy | DE-AC05-76RL01830 |
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory | |
Bioenergy Technologies Office |