Home | News Room | Building a Better Brand of Biomass

07/10/08 Des Plaines, IL

In a pair of new, complementary projects, GTI is leading a research effort to economically convert any leafy or woody biomass into a uniform, densified feedstock that can be easily fed into any thermal gasifier or pyrolyzer for conversion into syngas, fuels, and value-added chemicals.

One project will focus on biomass of Alabama and the southeastern United States, while the other project will address biomass characteristics of Nevada and the American West.

"This work will directly address the nation’s high priority of increasing the supply of domestic and renewable energy by integrating advanced technology that improves the conversion of biomass into fuels and power," said Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada.

Partnering with GTI in these projects are Changing World Technologies, Inc. and The Desert Research Institute.

Sponsored by the DOE, these initiatives are focused on the development of pretreatment technologies for processing a wide range of biomass types into a single, uniform feedstock of similar consistency and character. Experts note that reliable feeding systems must be engineered to accommodate different forms of biomass, a significant barrier that continues to hinder the global deployment of biomass-based energy production. Presently, some abundant biomass materials are not feasible energy feedstocks by virtue of the difficulty or cost of handling and preparing them for use.

Biomass within the United States is a great, diverse resource and includes trees, forest wastes, grasses, peanut hulls, cotton residues, corn husks, rice husks and straw, and other plant material. With the innovations in processing technologies planned for these projects, these and other domestic biomass materials can be processed to produce a consistent feedstock that can be easily converted into an energy-rich gas, intermediate oil, or suite of value-added chemicals by gasification or pyrolysis.

"An example is sugar-cane waste, or bagasse," explains GTI Project Manager, Larry Felix. “Sugar cane is a tough, sticky, fibrous material. Specialized feeding systems had to be developed just to accommodate these characteristics of bagasse. Other potential feeds such as corn stover and forest residues each have different characteristics that affect material handling and processing and require similar specialized handling. Instead of designing and building a feeding system for each kind of biomass, these projects address the issue preemptively and change the feed instead of the feeder.

"The over-riding interest is to expand the versatility of new and existing biomass processing facilities by providing them with the ability to accept multiple feedstocks," says Felix. "Our goal is an economical process to normalize the format of the feedstock and thereby directly encourage the use of energy-rich wastes and other sources of renewable energy that might otherwise be untapped."

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GTI is a leading research, development and training organization that has been addressing the nation’s energy and environmental challenges by developing technology-based solutions for consumers, industry, and government for more than 65 years.