ENK6-2002-00650 Integrated Biomass Utilisation for Production of Biofuels - CO-PRODUCTION BIOFUELS

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Biological Conversion : EESD (Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development) : Electricity : Liquid Biofuels and Biogas : Thermochemical Conversion

Proposal No:	ENK6-2002-00650
Date Prepared:	February 2004
Source:	European Bio-Energy Projects (EUR 20808)

Introduction

The most important problems to be addressed in ethanol production from agricultural raw material are:

• that the cost of transferring grain and straw from the field to the processing plants is too high;
• that no process has demonstrated cost-effective utilisation of the huge amount of municipal solid waste (MSW) produced by modern societies;
• that no pre-treatment method for lignocellulose biomass is feasible;
• that no ethanol fermentation process for mixtures for C5 and C6 sugars has demonstrated feasibility;
• that the cost of saccharification of pre-treated cellulose is too high; and
• that implementation of new technology in the very capital-intensive production of ethanol and electricity is very low.

Activities

This project aims to solve these challenges by the following activities:

• WP1: Construction and testing of a 100 kg/h continuous pilot plant to compare continuous wet oxidation and dilute acid hydrolyses as pre-treatment processes for lignocellulosic feedstock.
• WP2: Developing and testing of a novel simultaneous thermophilic ethanol fermentation end recovery process on feedstock providing C6 sugars, C5 sugars and mixtures of C6 and C5 sugars.
• WP3: Design and construction of a 1,000 kg/h pilot plant and trials on the pilot plant with straw, Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) and residues from food industries.
• WP4: Feasibility study on IBU system with 450,000 t/y molasses, straw and MSW at an existing CPH power station.
• WP5: Development of an IBU system for 400,000 t/y whole crop provided by a novel whole crop harvesting system and lab-scale testing of simultaneous thermophilic ethanol fermentation and recovery process.
• WP6: Establishment of an ICT (Information and Communication Technology) platform to facilitate the implementation of the project results.

Progress

The most important result is that the 100 kg/h pilot plant for continuous pre-treatment of lignocellulosic raw material has been developed and constructed. The double screw, plug flow reactor is designed for a pressure of max. 30 bar and temperatures up to 230° C. Loading and unloading of the reactor is conducted by two particle pumps (patent pending).

Impact and exploitation

It is expected that the project will provide a number of novel cost-reducing unit operations. When these innovations are combined and integrated with existing power plants, it is expected that biomass can provide ethanol for the transport sector and electricity to the grid at prices lower than any other production system for pollution-free renewable energy.

Based on this background, the target of the implementation plan will be to establish around 500 Integrated Biomass Utilisation Systems at existing power plants in Europe (incl. Eastern Europe) for the utilisation of the major part of all MSW, waste wood and straw, as well as whole crops from setaside land.

The socio-economic impact will be decisive by transforming waste products into products badly needed to reduce pollution and CO₂ emissions, and by stimulating the rural economy through increased production and stabilisation of prices.

Parallel to the implementation in Europe, a worldwide export of the project technology will be carried out with special attention being paid to existing ethanol plants in the US and Brazil.