Investigation of a new integrated biofuel production process via fast pyrolysis, co-gasification and hydroupgrading

Abstract

A new integrated process of biofuel production is introduced and analyzed. This process consists of lignocellulosic biomass fast pyrolysis, gasification, electrical power generation and latest bio-oil upgrading in biorefinery processes. Upgrading processes include hydrotreating, distillation, hydrocracking and steam reforming units. Biomass is converted to bio-oil, gas and bio-char through fast pyrolysis which is then used in biorefinery and gasification. Simulation results show that 1 kg/s hybrid poplar biomass generate about 0.68 kg/s bio-oil, 0.16 kg/s gas and 0.17 kg/s char. Also 5.62 MW electrical power can be gained from the steam cycle. The excess heat of gasification can be used as a part of the required heat source in the process. Moreover the produced syngas is used in the steam reforming unit to provide the required hydrogen in the refinery. In addition, by heat integration the consumption of hot and cold utilities decreased and consequently the process performance improved. The obtained results show that synthetic biofuel yield is about 0.49 wt% and 0.51 wt% gasoline/diesel blendstocks. Moreover economic analysis, sensitivity analysis was also done to study the effects of major operating parameters, i.e., steam reforming temperature, steam/carbon ratio of gasification and greenhouse gas emission, on the process performance.