Scaling Up Bioenergy Technology

Biomass conversion processes typically require solids and slurry handling. This can present many unique challenges including varying physical and chemical properties of the solid biomass feed, tar formation, hot gas filtering, high temperature solids recirculation, and many others. As a result of these challenges, scaling these processes from lab to commercial scales can often result in unexpected setbacks and late stage design changes that can easily derail budgets and schedules. In order to mitigate the risks of associated with the commercialization of these types of processes, Zeton suggests a modified approach to scale up. In this approach, the various individual concepts and unit operations of a process are extensively tested at lab and pilot scales. This testing allows for a strong understanding of feed properties, including flowability, and minimizes the risk of solids handling issues as the process scales. This testing is especially critical for processes that involve pressurized feed systems, where bridging can be problematic. On top of this unit testing, Zeton also recommends that biomass processes use much smaller scale-up factors when scaling from lab to pilot, pilot to demonstration, and demonstration to commercial plants. Increasing the number of pilot and demonstration steps allows most design changes to be realized a scale where cost and schedule impact are minimized.