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DOE to award up to $15M for technologies to produce bio-oils for use as feedstocks in petroleum refineries

The US Department of Energy (DOE) will award (DE-FOA-0000686) up to $15 million to projects that will accelerate the development of thermochemical liquefaction technologies to produce a bio-oil feedstock from high-impact biomass feedstocks that can be utilized within a petroleum refinery for further processing to final fuels such as renewable gasoline, diesel or jet. Projects may also propose technologies utilizing oils extracted from algae that could be accepted into a petroleum refinery for further processing to the final products.

High impact feedstocks are those that have the ultimate agronomically and ecologically sustainable potential of producing at least 50 million dry tonnes per year in the United States. DOE will consider heterotrophic algae only if grown using a high-impact cellulosic biomass-derived feedstock so that the final fuel will be an advanced biofuel.

There are a number of over-arching R&D challenges in the area of pyrolysis, starting with the lack of a standard definition of what constitutes an acceptable bio-oil feedstock product. This includes physical properties (density, viscosity, etc.) as well as chemical properties (hydrocarbon range, stability, etc.). The current slate of intermediates depends strongly on both the feedstock and process, DOE notes. Other major challenges include:

  • The community lacks a clear understanding of the tradeoff between optimizing yield and product quality. This partially stems from the lack of a clear definition of what constitutes product quality.

  • The fundamental thermochemical mechanisms of biomass decomposition are not well understood. Thorough characterization of process streams (including the product) is difficult.

  • Current biomass catalysts have a short lifespan and are prone to deactivation by impurities. Catalyst stability and selectivity are problematic.

  • Solvent recovery and recycle is difficult (and expensive) in many liquefaction processes. Better technologies are needed to improve cost-competitiveness; wastewater treatment suffers from similar challenges.

  • Process sustainability and economics are strongly influenced by the amount of hydrogen that is needed to simultaneously achieve high carbon yields and low GHG emissions. Low-cost, non-fossil hydrogen sources are needed.

Applicants must propose an algae or thermochemical liquefaction conversion pathway for producing a bio-oil feedstock that can be utilized at one or more insertion points within a petroleum refinery, such as in the hydrotreaters, reformers, fluid catalytic crackers, cokers, isomerization units, or hydrocrackers. There may be other insertion points that are unique to the targeted petroleum refinery and this should be addressed in the application.

For the purpose of the Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), DOE defines insertion points as any point after vacuum or atmospheric distillation within the refinery where a feedstock can be inserted for additional processing. DOE will not consider applications proposing to blend a bio-oil feedstock only at the beginning of the refining process with the crude oil (i.e. pre-vacuum distillation or pre-atmospheric distillation) or only at the end of the refining process as finished fuels (i.e. blending) as responsive to the FOA. Projects proposing gasification or biodiesel (FAME) conversion technologies are also not considered responsive to this FOA.

The FOA is intended for research and development (R&D) at either:

  • Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) 2 through 3 (Topic Area 1); or
  • TRLs 4 through 6 (Topic Area 2)

TRL 2 describes the invention of the technology concept and/or application, and TRL 3 describes the initiation of active research and development. TRLs 4-6 cover validation and demonstration from the lab to a relevant environment.

Topic Area 1 applicants are not required to have a petroleum refinery partner at the time of application but must describe their plans to overcome R&D barriers for making bio-oil feedstock acceptable in a petroleum refinery and engage with the intent to secure a refinery partner by the end of the project. Engaging a petroleum refinery partner by the end of the project period is a key project deliverable for Topic Area 1 and it is anticipated that a partnership of this nature would be critical to secure the funding necessary to enable advancement of the technology.

Topic Area 2 applicants must have a petroleum refinery partner secured at the time of application and this partnership should be evident in a coordinated R&D work plan for making bio-oil feedstock acceptable to a petroleum refinery for further processing to transportation fuels and other co-products. One of the key project deliverables for Topic Areas 2 is an engineering design package for a future pilot scale facility for producing bio-oil feedstock to be integrated into an existing refinery.

DOE expects to fully fund between five to ten projects in fiscal year 2012 to produce bio-oil prototypes that can be tested in oil refineries and used to develop comprehensive technical and economic analyses of how bio-oils could work. Domestic industry, universities and laboratories are all eligible to apply.

Comments

Henry Gibson

The lowest cost and cheapest way of reducing CO2 release is not with bio-fuels but with using combined heat and power and cooling in buildings using natural gas where available.

It is also easy to use natural gas instead of the standard liquid fuel. That is use natural gas along with standard liquid fuels. Railroads especially can have liquid natural gas supplemental fuel available for unit trains of coal for many routes.

Perhaps the various world governments will employ people who will calculate the cost of gathering bio-fuels and will discover that Infinia solar electric machines devoted to producing hydrogen are more efficient and less costly. They could also produce liquid SO2 from sulphuric acid which can later be electrolysed witj water at lower costs to produce hydrogen. ..HG..

SJC

I see the advantage of energy shifting, saving energy with combined heat/cool/power and substituting with solar thermal and solar cells to save natural gas.

That natural gas that is saved can now be use in CNG/LNG and synthetic fuels for transportation. Using those fuels for transportation reduces the amount of imported oil and money leaving the country.

Broad Paul

The lowest cost and cheapest way of reducing CO2 release is not with bio-fuels but with using combined heat and power and cooling in buildings using natural gas where available. flats in london

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