Columbus, Ohio -- Battelle engineers and scientists say they have developed a mobile device to transform a ton of pine chips, shavings and sawdust to up to 4,900 litres of wet bio-oil per day.
Battelle's bio-oil can be converted to a bio-polyol that can be substituted for polyols derived from petroleum. Battelle's bio-polyols have been validated by a third-party polyurethane producer as a viable alternative to conventional polyols.
The intermediate bio-oil can also be upgraded by hydrotreatment into a gas/diesel blend or jet fuel, a process which was key to Battelle's research.
Extensive testing of the bio-based gasoline alternative produced by Battelle suggests that it can be blended with existing gasoline and can help fuel producers meet their renewable fuel requirements.
Battelle is evaluating this one-ton-per-day system at its West Jefferson, Ohio facility. The pilot-scale system is the culmination of Battelle's second-stage development of the mobile pyrolysis technology.
Initially, the company created a bench-scale machine that converted 50 lbs (22.7kg) of wood waste per day, demonstrating the novel concept. The next step will be to work with a strategic partner/investor to produce a tenth-scale demonstration unit.
Currently, Battelle experts use mainly pine waste in the transportable pyrolysis unit, although the high-tech machine can be modified to use other types of unwanted agricultural field residue known as stranded biomass, including corn stover, switch grass and Miscanthus.
Additionally, all of the waste materials produced by the unit's process-liquid, solid and gas-have been taken into account. The liquid waste stream is water that can be safely recycled or disposed of, the solid char contains inorganics that can be used in fertilizers and the venting gas is monitored for safety.
Because of its small size, the pyrolysis unit is installed on the trailer of a flat-bed 18-wheel truck, making it mobile and thus transportable to the waste products. This feature makes it ideal to access the woody biomass that is often left stranded in agricultural regions, far away from industrial facilities. It's potentially a significant cost advantage over competing processes represented by large facilities that require shipment of the biomass from its home site.
"We have something quite compelling," said Kathya Mahadevan, Business Line Manager in Battelle's Energy and Environment at business. "We've got it producing oil and have proven viable applications for it. As we increase scale, we will be able to further refine efficiencies such as thermal consumption and yield."
The Battelle bio-oil created by the mobile pyrolysis unit is similar to naturally occurring fossil oils harvested from underground. The hydrotreated, upgraded fuel from machine meets the Renewable Fuel Standard set by the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
