Bio-crude Turns Cheap Waste into Valuable Fuel

CSIRO and Monash University announced that they have developed a chemical process that turns green waste into a stable bio-crude oil.

Bio-crude works in much the same way as crude oil, making it economical to produce bio-crude in local areas for transport to a central biorefinery for further processing, rather than transporting bulky green waste to the refinery.

The bio-crude oil can be used to produce high value chemicals and biofuels, including both petrol and diesel replacement fuels.

“By making changes to the chemical process, we’ve been able to create a concentrated bio-crude which is much more stable than that achieved elsewhere in the world,”

-- Dr Steven Loffler of CSIRO Forest Biosciences.

The process uses low value waste such as forest thinnings, crop residues, waste paper and garden waste, significant amounts of which are currently dumped in landfill or burned.

According to Biopact bio-crude oil is a next-generation biofuel obtained from the fast pyrolysis of any type of biomass including waste. Fast pyrolysis is a process in which the organic materials are rapidly heated to 450 - 600 °C at atmospheric pressure in the absence of air. Under these conditions, organic vapours, pyrolysis gases and charcoal are produced. The vapours are condensed to bio-oil. Typically, 70-75 wt.% of the feedstock is converted into oil.

This process is similar to the process used by Dynamotive.

Comments

[GreyFlcn]

And where is all this magical "cheap waste" going to come from?

I really do hate it how people assume material waste is anything more than the tip of a melting iceberg.

It's nice, for that 1-5% solution.
But it ain't anything more than that.

[DaveMart]

I'd agree, Greyfcn.
Still, it's nice to know that we should be able to run our farm equipment with readily available fuel, which means we won't starve.

[ep]

Is pyrolysis actually what the technology being used, as opppsed to another form of gasification? What's the difference between bio-crude and syngas? just curious if anyone knows

[Harold Mosher]

There is much to be said about the byproduct, charcoal. Not only is is a carbon sink, effectively removing that much carbon from the atmosphere, but it is also a valuable soil supplement.

[George Bruce]

What is the energy ROI on this? I would expect that it will take a lot of energy, compared to the net result, to heat the waste to 600C.

[George Bruce]

What is the energy ROI on this? I would expect that it will take a lot of energy, compared to the net result, to heat the waste to 600C.

[Buddy Ebsen]

GreyFlcn, can you highlight the line that says this technology will single-handedly save the earth and all of us on it?

Where will the 'magical waste' come from? It seems you didn't even read the synopsis: "The process uses low value waste such as forest thinnings, crop residues, waste paper and garden waste, significant amounts of which are currently dumped in landfill or burned."

I really do hate it when people discard good solutions because they are not a complete and total remedy. One thing is becoming clear, we need to get every single solution working towards the goal if we are going to succeed. Is wind power a complete solution? Is solar? Wave power? Hydro? No, neither is bio-mass in any form. But add them all together and you get a complete solution.

[technofossil]

I didn't see any new technology-- just the use of "bio-crude" as opposed to "bio-oil" or "pyrolysis-oil", used before.

What's fast pyrolysis and the difference between bio-crude and syngas? With pyrolysis, you heat the biomass only moderately to create vapor that condenses into stinky black goo (hence bio-crude). The leftover char is burned to generate the required heat, and leftover heat can be used to make electicity.

To get syngas, you heat at higher temperatures.

Supposedly pyrolysis oil can be made for $.50/gal, then burned as fuel oil or in generators, or by adding H2, upgraded transportation fuel. Either the biomass can be brought to a refinery, or converted to pyro-oil and transported to the refinery.

Good references: Czernik:Review of Fast Pyrolysisof Biomass, Bain:World Biofuels Assessment, Bridgwater:Upgrading pyrolysis liquids to
transport fuels.

[JDT]

The math does not add up here.

It says 70 - 75% of feedstock is converted into oil, by weight.

Well, water is probably 30% of the weight to begin with, and that will not convert into anything. So I suppose the 75% figure above is the dry weight.

Then, fast pyrolysis I think will also produce a lot of CO and CO2 and H2O from the decomposition of organic molecules, just like in a syngas gassification process. These will not show up in the oil because they are gases, unless FT process is used on the CO and there will then have to be a source of hydrogen as well.

So these people are claiming that the waste output from this process, that is the C, CO, CO2, and H2O is only 25% of the dry weight?

And then a good part of the feedstock is input energy needed to maintain the temperature at 600 degrees for the fast pyrolysis in the first place. This introduces more CO2 and H2O waste by weight.

Hard to accept their claim of 75% efficiency.

[Paul F. Dietz]

Biocrude is a liquid mixture of oxygenated organic compounds. It tends to be rather acidic and unstable.

Syngas is a gas, not a liquid, and is mostly carbon monoxide and hydrogen.

[Roger Brown]

My understandng is pyrolysis oil is of much lower economic quality than conventional crude oil. It can be used as a heating fuel, but cannot be upgraded to gasoline or diesel fuel by conventional refining techniques. I think that gasificaton and fischer-tropsch synthesis are required in order to produce high grade hydrocarbon fuels.

[warren]

GreyFlcn

In your defense, the article doesn't speak much about the sources of this biomass, but believe me they are there. And as the article indicates, a great deal of this energy is going into the landfill. Consequently, Waste Management ltd., a Canadian waste disposal company, is operating 3 landfill gas generating stations. Although in the US, they burn all kinds of garbage, which is not good.

But I have the answer as to where the fuel can come from, but using a diffrent process, Anerobic Digestion of organic marterial. Bio-gas, or Bio-methane, is just like natural gas. During the digestion process, CO2, H2, and CH4 are produced, with the H2 and CH4 being captured and sold. the C02 also has a market value for horticulture and industry.

The sources can be anything and everything biodegradeble. And with new technology, bio-plastics and bio-foam, from vegetable based hydrocarbon oils. This means, all take-out cups, plates, forks, knives, etc. think Starbucks, Mcdonalds, etc.

all paper, instead of recycling, where the gain is greater to use up the energy in the paper than recycle it, it could be used.

All wood waste, agricultural waste(cow, pigs, chicken feces), agricultural run off and water treatment, Human waste, Unmarketable food products (rotten, not up to standard, bad batch, ect.), Residential yard waste, ect.

Germany predicts that by 2020, biogas could be equivalent to all of the current natural gas imports into the European Union.

http://biopact.com/2008/01/report-biogas-can-replace-all-eu.html

And the fuel can be used for transportation (CNG Diesel is a great fuel for buses, cars, etc.), Home heating, Co-generation of heat and electricity, Producing H2, chemical inputs for industry,

[Jim from The Energy Blog]

My best scenario is that in 20-30 years our vehicle fleet will largely consist of PHEVs, EVs, and a few left over hybrids which will consume 30% of the liquid fuel that we now use. As are oil reserves dimmish biofuels have to take over as the primary liquid fuels. Biofuels are now extimated to be able to furnish this amout of fuel. Thus if refined bio-crude (or bio-oil)could furnish 5% of current cunsumption (which in itself is worthwhile), it will then be able to account for over 15% of the total requirement, which is far from insignificant. I am convinced as indicated in the next post that our oil supplies will start to dimminish in about 2015 so we have no time to waste in implementing these technologies. Cost of all biofuels will be less than the price oil derived fuels because the demand for oil will be so great until a balance is achieved, sometime after 2025. Increased use of (and availability of) mass transportation and the use of smaller cars to achieve greater efficiency will also play a big roll in how much time we have before prices start to escalate out of control.