Novel fluidized bed reactors for thermo-catalytic conversion of biomass residues to bioenergy, biofuels and biochemicals

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The three major challenges in the 21st century are food security, climate change and energy sustainability. Bioenergy is one promising renewable energy source, with low net CO2 emissions and potentially sustainable if the economical, environmental and social impacts are properly managed. There are abundant forest and agricultural biomass residues in Canada, with a potential to replace more than 50% fossil fuels currently consumed at BC alone. So far, only less than 20% has been processed into pellets and exported to Europe without benefit to GHG reduction in Canada. Our recent life cycle analysis revealed that exported pellets have ~25% fossil fuel content mostly associated with the ocean transport and densification. The development of clean and economically viable biomass conversion technologies for a domestic market is thus imperative to promote the local utilization of biomass residues in Canada. ****** Higher-value applications of biomass residues for the production of biofuels and biochemicals emerges either through the thermo-catalytic pathway or the biochemical pathway, in which biomass is first deconstructed into intermediates (syngas and bio-oil thermo-catalytically or sugars/extractives bio-chemically), which are then further upgraded to biofuels/chemicals via catalytic/biological reactions or fractionation. The key technical challenges in developing a viable thermo-catalytic pathway are: (1) how to improve the quality of bio-oil, (2) how to reduce the hydrogen demand in bio-oil upgrading, (3) how to remove tar to make clean syngas, (4) how to maximize the selectivity of targeted biofuels and chemicals in the upgrading process from syngas and bio-oil, and (5) how to avoid using fossil-derived hydrogen. ******The long term goal of my research will be centralized in developing novel multiphase reactor technologies for converting abundant forest, agricultural and municipal biomass residues to valuable bioenergy, biofuels and bioproducts, with a minimal environmental footprint. The research will focus on the development of new catalysts and novel reactor technologies to address key challenges in both chemical and thermo-catalytic conversion pathways aiming at breakthroughs in new, value-added and environmentally-friendly products. The proposed research in this Discovery program focuses on: (1) fundamental understanding of a novel microwave-assisted, gas pulsating, solids plug flow fluidized bed reactor for biomass torrefaction and catalytic pyrolysis, enabling the modeling, simulation and scale-up and design of such a novel reactor system; (2) development and characterization of low-cost multi-functional (catalyst, microwave absorber and soil nutrient) catalysts, derived from natural or waste materials, for biomass microwave catalytic pyrolysis and catalytic reduction of nitrogen oxides for the treatment of flue gases from district biomass energy systems.