Process modeling for Biomass Conversion Process

The world's energy demand are ever increasing and the fossil fuel sources are being depleted, leading to increasing competition for the available energy sources, and thereby hampering economic growth by high energy prices. To overcome this situation renew able energy resources such as wind, solar and biomass must be brought into exploitation. The rapid increase in global energy demand and diminishing fossil fuel resources make the search for new energy sources a major concern, and as a consequence, there i s a big interest in the production and use of renewable energy. In this context, application of biomass, as a renewable energy source, has gained an important role in the world's future energy policy. Biomass conversion processes require thermodynamic pr operties, models and analysis method for process development, design and optimization. Due to the complexity of the biomass structure and the chemical reactions occurred in biomass conversion, the phase behavior and the thermodynamic properties involved i n this kind of processes are rather complex, which require special considerations in the thermodynamic modeling. Therefore detailed process modelling and optimizations studies are necessary to demonstrate an effective way for the exploitation of multiple interactions between the processing steps. A considerable amount of model studies on supercritical conversion has been performed. However, in the subcritical range studies are few. Kinetic modelling is an important area in HTL biomass conversion to oil o f which very little information is available. The derivation of reaction pathways on one hand and chemical kinetics and parameter estimation on the other make up the two vital aspects of kinetic modelling of HTL conversion processes. The reaction mechanis ms usually provide an understanding into the chemical steps through which the products were obtained.

Biomass conversion processes can be used to convert fractions of biomass into liquid transportation fuels. Two methods currently available for biomass energy conversion are biochemical and thermochemical methods. Biochemical conversion utilizes enzymes or acid to break down the lignocellulosic biomass product intermediates such as fermentable sugars, which can be fermented or otherwise converted to valuable fuels. Thermochemical conversion technologies include processes such as liquefaction, gasification and pyrolysis, which heat biomass at restricted oxygen levels to produce product intermediates that can be converted into liquid fuels. One of the potentially interesting processes for the production of bio-oil is from organic waste streams through hydrot hermal liquefaction processes like; LBL, HTU® TDP and CatLiq®. These processes are operated at elevated temperatures (280