Collaborative Research in Energy with South Africa:Scale-up modelling to answer Pyrolysis Challenge

碳信托关于热解挑战的最新公告强调了热解油作为具有低系统温室气体（绿色家用气体）排放的运输燃料的潜在替代品的重要性。热解挑战中概述了两个主要障碍：a）开发快速热解工艺，以低成本和大规模生产质量更好的石油; B）最好利用现有炼油厂对石油进行升级。如果没有大量低成本提供热解油的技术和能力，开发生物油提质技术和炼油厂的投资就不会出现。因此，开发适合工业化生产的快速热解工艺是当务之急。该项目将侧重于开发计算模型，作为生物质快速热解系统工艺设计，优化和放大的有效工具。英国拥有成为世界热解技术领导者的技术基础，南非有潜力成为世界上主要的热解油生产国。这项建议是形成一个建设性的合作与英国的专业知识，在计算建模和南非的经验，在化学过程工程。英国和南非的研究所将作为中心，将该项目与正在进行的国家研究计划相结合，以使更广泛的参与。该项目预计将产生催化作用，促进英国和南非之间更多的合作研究和商业开发。

The latest announcement from the Carbon Trust on Pyrolysis Challenge highlights the importance of pyrolysis-oil as the potential replacement for transport fuels with low system GHG (green house gases) emissions. The two main barriers are outlined in Pyrolysis Challenge : a) to develop fast pyrolysis process to produce a better quality oil at low cost and large scale; b) upgrading the oil preferably with existing refinery. Without the technology and capacity to provide pyrolysis oils in large quantity and low cost, the investment in developing bio-oil upgrading technology and refinery will not be forthcoming. Therefore the development of fast pyroloysis process suitable for scale-up is the most impending issue. This project will focus on the development of computational models which work as effective tools for process design, optimisation and scale-up for biomass fast pyrolysis systems. UK has the technology base to become the world leader in pyrolysis technology and South Africa has the potential to be a major pyrolysis oil manufacturer in the world. This proposal is to form a constructive collaboration with UK expertise in computational modelling and South Africa experience in chemical process engineering. The UK and SA institutes will act as hubs to integrate this project with on-going national research programmes to enable a much wider participation. The project is expected to have catalytic effects to stimulate more collaborative research and commercial exploitation between UK and South Africa.