(534b) A Discussion of Realistic Feedstocks: Can We Use 2-Year-Old Short Rotation Hybrid Poplar Coppice for Fuels and Chemicals Production Via Biochemical and Thermochemical Conversion?
AIChE Annual Meeting
2016
2016 AIChE Annual Meeting
Sustainable Engineering Forum
Integrated Thermochemical and Biochemical Processing for Renewable Fuels and Chemicals
Wednesday, November 16, 2016 - 12:55pm to 1:20pm
By harvesting all aboveground parts of 2-year-old hybrid poplar coppice, the biomass used in this study was comprised of 37% leaves, 9% bark, 12% branches, and 42% whitewood chips (dry weight basis). From this, four biomass samples were prepared and studied: 1) 2-year-old poplar mixture, 2) 2-year-old poplar mixture without leaves, 3) 2-year-old poplar leaves, and 4) 12-year-old poplar wood chips. In biochemical conversion, all poplar samples were steam pretreated at 195Ë?C for 5 minutes with 3% SO2and enzymatic hydrolyzed at 5FPU/cellulose enzyme loadings. The sugar recovery and estimated ethanol yield were calculated. In thermochemical conversion, samples were fast pyrolyzed at 500 Ë?C, for 1 second in a fluidized bed reactor. The final bio-oil yield and composition were measured.
Results show that converting the 2-year-old hybrid poplar coppice may be challenging, with up to 50% lower sugar yield and close to 30% lower bio-oil yield than 12-year-old poplar wood chips. However, the removal of leaves significantly increased the overall sugar recovery and bio-oil production by 20% and 15%, respectively. Unsurprisingly, the substrate derived from isolated leaves performed poorly in both biochemical and thermochemical conversion. These results show that leaf removal from 2-year-old hybrid poplar coppice prior to harvest may enhance the biorefinery production. Given the yields of both processes, we will evaluate the economics of converting 2-year-old hybrid poplar coppice to sugar and bio-oil via biochemical and thermochemical conversions.