NRW Inno-Cluster Bioenergy

Lead Institute HF Institute of Wood Research

Innovationscluster-Bioenergie

Sustainable Supply with Raw Materials and Energy

Ablative fast pyrolysis is a special process to generate bio-oils from biomasses. In contrast to petroleum, biomass derived pyrolysis oils cannot be distilled into fractions for example parafins. Therefore, we investigate the staged condensation of bio-oils to enrich basic chemical feedstocks.

Background and Objective

Fraunhofer UMSICHT initiated the innovation cluster Bioenergy aimed at increasing biomass potentials for energy. Within four years of project runtime new conversion technologies will be developed to process straw, wet, and lignocellulosic biomass. The overall objective of the cluster is to avoid the competition between food production and biomass utilization for energy. In this context new options for the production of energy and chemical feedstocks will be developed focused on technologies ready for export for the growing world market. Our work focuses on two biomass assortments, which are available in larger amounts : straw and residues from local and regional processing such as food processing. We want to convert these materials into carbon-rich intermediates, convertable to final products with the existing infrastructure. Hence, optimization is needed until these vertical integrated process steps are realized.

Approach

Fraunhofer UMSICHT operates two ablative pyrolysis units, one laboratory scale and one pilot scale. These devices can convert different solid biomasses into liquid energy carriers, the so-called pyrolysis oil. HF is involved with the chemical analysis of all fractions by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry, elemental analysis and further wet-chemical methods.