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

世纪的三大挑战是粮食安全、气候变化和能源可持续性。生物能源是一种很有前途的可再生能源，净二氧化碳排放量低，如果经济，环境和社会影响得到适当管理，则具有潜在的可持续性。加拿大有丰富的森林和农业生物质残留物，有可能取代目前仅BC省消耗的50%以上的化石燃料。到目前为止，只有不到20%被加工成颗粒并出口到欧洲，而加拿大的温室气体减排没有好处。我们最近的生命周期分析显示，出口的球团矿中约有25%的化石燃料含量，主要与海洋运输和致密化有关。因此，为国内市场开发清洁和经济上可行的生物质转化技术对于促进加拿大当地利用生物质残余物至关重要。 生物质残余物用于生产生物燃料和生物化学品的更高价值应用通过热催化途径或生物化学途径出现，其中生物质首先被解构为中间体（合成气和生物油热催化或糖/生物化学提取物），然后通过催化/生物反应或分馏进一步升级为生物燃料/化学品。开发可行的热催化途径的关键技术挑战是：（1）如何提高生物油的质量，（2）如何降低生物油提质中的氢需求，（3）如何去除焦油以制备清洁的合成气，（4）如何在从合成气和生物油的提质过程中最大化目标生物燃料和化学品的选择性，（5）如何避免使用化石氢。 我的研究的长期目标将集中在开发新的多相反应器技术，将丰富的森林，农业和城市生物质残渣转化为有价值的生物能源，生物燃料和生物产品，以最小的环境足迹。该研究将侧重于开发新的催化剂和新型反应器技术，以解决化学和热催化转化途径中的关键挑战，旨在突破新的，增值的和环保的产品。本发现计划的研究重点是：（1）对用于生物质烘焙和催化热解的新型微波辅助气体脉动固体活塞流流化床反应器的基本理解，使这种新型反应器系统的建模，模拟和放大和设计成为可能;（2）开发和表征低成本多功能（催化剂、微波吸收剂和土壤养分）催化剂，来源于天然或废料，生物质微波催化热解和氮氧化物催化还原，用于处理区域生物质能源系统的烟道气。

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.