(510d) Synergistic Routes to Liquid Fuel for a Petroleum Deprived Future

As compared to biomass gasification/Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, hydropyrolysis/hydrodeoxygenation (HDO) based processes have a potential to achieve high biomass carbon conversion to liquid fuel with much lower amounts of supplementary H2. On the basis of this observation, we suggest a Hydrogen Bio-oil (H2Bioil) process using fast-hydropyrolysis/HDO that has a potential to produce nearly double the amount of liquid fuel when compared to the existing biofuel processes while requiring only modest quantities of supplementary H2. The optimal operating mode for the H2Bioil process is suggested to be in an entrained bed mode in presence of H2 with gas phase HDO of hydropyrolyzed vapors. A remarkable result due to reduced need for the supplementary H2 is that it provides synergistic integration of the H2Bioil process with a coal gasification power plant or a small scale steam natural gas reformer leading to a dramatic increase in the liquid fuel production from biomass and coal or natural gas. Here, hot syngas (T>500°C) from a coal gasifier or methane reformer supplies H2/CO for hydropyrolysis and deoxygenation as well as heat for the process. This result is exciting because it presents us with an option to build integrated H2Bioil processes sooner rather than later when the cost-effective H2 becomes available from a carbon-free energy source such as solar or nuclear. The H2Bioil process and its integrated version with a small scale natural gas reformer have strong potential to be attractive on a small scale while being more efficient than any current biomass to liquid fuel process in operation.