Biomass gasification fundamentals to support the development of BTL in forest industry

Renewable, recyclable and biodegradable products are the backbone of a climate-friendly society. The Finnish and Swedish industrial development projects are presently leading the global development on this pathway to renewable transportation fuels. The Nordic forest industry creates new concepts and provides solutions to mitigate climate challenge. One of the most interesting concepts is the integrated production of pulp and paper products and transportation fuels.

The Finnish and Swedish activities are aiming to the same objective increased profitability of pulp and paper industry by using their by-products for producing high-quality renewable fuels. However, the technical approach is different and consequently co-operation on the creation of scientific background know-how on critical biomass gasification issues is fruitful for both groups.

VTT is supporting the Finnish industrial demonstration projects on steam-oxygen blown fluidised-bed gasification. ETC is in very close co-operation with Swedish Chemrec, who is operating their pilot plant in Piteå. ETC has been responsible for special measurements and fundamental R&D activities related to black liquor gasification. The Chemrec technology is based on oxygen-blown entrained flow gasification.

The R&D consortium (VTT-ETC-LTU-Sintef) created in this project has an important role in providing background know-how and new scientific results through experiments and modelling to support the industrial development projects.

The European market pull for renewable transportation fuels is huge. If 5 % of the transportation fuels would be produced via thermal gasification route in 2030 this would mean roughly 150 gasification plants of 300 MW feed corresponding to annual turnover of 15 billion euros and to equipment sales of the order of 50 billion euro in 2015 – 2030. The Nordic pulp and paper mills are offering excellent sites for the early demonstration of this technology before expanding to other countries and other types of integration possibilities.

The objective of this project is to create new scientific knowledge on fluidised-bed and entrained-flow gasification of biomass residues and black liquor in order to support the Nordic industrial development and demonstration projects. In addition, the aim is to organise close co-operation between the Finnish, Swedish and Norwegian R&D organisations.

VTT has already achieved a globally leading role in R&D on fluidised-bed gasification and the ETC and North Swedish Universities are also becoming as one of the leading centers of biomass gasification R&D in the world.

The Bioenergy team at SINTEF Energy Research has world-class know-how on the fate of inorganic species in thermochemical conversion processes and this knowledge has a key role in understanding the gasification and gas cleaning fundamentals.

Workshops and seminars  be organised around selected topics. Industries from participating countries will also be invited to these seminars and site visits to Finnish and Swedish gasification R&D facilities will be arranged. In the project, several international publications will be prepared.

Project steering group

Esa Kurkela, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, FI
Rikard Gebart, ETC Energitekniskt Centrum i Piteå, SE

Marcus Öhman, LTU Luleå tekniska universitet, SE

Rainer Backman, SINTEF Sintef Energy Research, NO

More information

Project duration: 2010-2013
Budget: 17.4 million NOK
Nordic Energy Research contributes with 54%