Chemical Processing
Idaho National Laboratory
Description
Chemical processing offers a method to change the chemical composition of biomass materials, alter the structure, and enhance biological access to carbohydrates. These methods are usually paired with mechanical agitation or even application of mechanical forces to enhance the structural changes induced via chemical acidic or caustic catalyst. Equipment at INL is available as a series of batch reactors that can screen variable material qualities of catalyst additions/formulations, as well as a continuous chemical preconversion system. These heated pressure systems are designed to accelerate the rate and extent of processing and mimic commercial scale equipment and operation. The continuous production unit uses a compression screw to maintain pressure via a biomass plug, as well as remove the liquid catalyst.
Capability Bounds
4L batch reactors
Continuous system; 1-10 kg/hr
Unique Aspects
This system pairs batch reactors and a continuous reactor for scale-up processing and higher throughputs. The construction of the material allows for acidic and caustic additions, and can also achieve autohydrolysis with rapid swings of temperature/pressure.
Availability
This capability is available through collaborative work scopes that utilize a variety of contractual mechanisms to meet the needs of the partners and funding agencies.
Benefit
Chemical treatments can remove inorganics with the biomass, as well as contaminants or toxins. At the same time, they can be tailored to reduce the cost of size and densification by weakening the biomass structure. These changes improve the process economics in other preprocessing operations, and can improve the yield and performance of biomass in conversion.
Capability Expert(s)
Luke Williams, Neal Yancey, John Aston, David Thompson
References
- Hamed, Ahmed, Yidong Xia, Eliezer A. Reyes Molina, John E. Aston, Abhishek Paul, Mark Small, David Thompson, and C. Luke Williams. “Quantitative Assessment of Milled Woody Biomass Attributes Impact on the Performance of Compression Screw Feeder Using Modeling and Experiment.” In 2023 AIChE Annual Meeting. AIChE, 2023.
- Hu, Hongqiang, Tyler L. Westover, Robert Cherry, John E. Aston, Jeffrey A. Lacey, and David N. Thompson. “Process simulation and cost analysis for removing inorganics from wood chips using combined mechanical and chemical preprocessing.” BioEnergy Research 10 (2017): 237-247.
- Aston, John E., David N. Thompson, and Tyler L. Westover. “Performance assessment of dilute-acid leaching to improve corn stover quality for thermochemical conversion.” Fuel 186 (2016): 311-319.
