Biomass Derived Transport Fuels via Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis

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As part of the EU's Renewable Energy Directive, the UK has set specific measures to reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) intensity of the transport sector by 6%. Furthermore, as a UN member state, the UK is legally bound to meet, or surpass, a target of 10% usage of transport fuels from renewable sources in the transport sector by 2020.However, there are currently two significant barriers to meeting these targets: i) the UK's transport sector only gets around 4.4% of fuels from renewable sources and ii) there is a 7% cap on the use of first generation biofuels, from crops grown on agricultural land, to preserve the sustainability of arable land and to ensure the impact on staple food prices is minimised. This means that non-food derived biofuels must be developed to surpass the 10% target, such as lignocellulosic biomass or otherunwanted, organic waste.Liquid biofuels, predominately diesel and gasoline, have significant advantages over other renewable transport fuels owing to their high energy density and ability to be used in existing engines and distribution systems. Currently commercial diesel in the US and EU can contain up to 5 and 7 vol.% biodiesel respectively. This is because the composition of biofuels directly derived from plants depend heavily on the source oil, resulting in a wide variation in the properties of the fuel, such as octaneor cetane number of biodiesel and biogasoline, respectively.Several technologies have been proposed to achieve a more consistent fuel e.g. enzymatic biological processes, fast pyrolysis, hydrothermal upgrading and gasification to form syngas followed by the Fischer-Tropsch (FT) reaction. This project focuses on the production of liquid transport fuels (viz. petrol and diesel) from biomass derived syngas via the FT reaction, known as biomass to liquids (BTL). Since road transport accounts for 75-85% of the worldwide transportation emissions, primarily using liquidfuels, this is an area of significant interest.The overall objective of this PhD research project is to utilise a small scale, integrated experimental workflow to study the production of transport fuels via syngas derived from woody biomass. The process will be studied from gasification of biomass through to the quality of the fuels produced. In particular, the effect of contaminants in the syngas on catalyst activity, selectivity and lifespan will be explored with the aim of developing a multifunctional catalyst suitable for use within industry.