Liquid transportation fuels via large-scale fluidisedbed gasification of lignocellulosic biomass
With the objective of gaining a better understanding of the system design tradeoffs and economics that pertain to biomass-to-liquids processes, 20 individual BTL plant designs were evaluated based on their technical and economic performance. The investigation was focused on gasification-based processes that enable the conversion of biomass to methanol, dimethyl ether, Fischer-Tropsch liquids or synthetic gasoline at a large (300 MWth of biomass) scale. The biomass conversion technology was based on pressurised steam/O2-blown fluidised-bed gasification, followed by hot-gas filtration and catalytic conversion of hydrocarbons and tars. This technology has seen extensive development and demonstration activities in Finland during the recent years and newly generated experimental data has been incorporated into the simulation models. Our study included conceptual design issues, process descriptions, mass and energy balances and production cost estimates.
