BTL biomass to liquid

What is BTL?

Biomass to liquid is a thermochemical route to make synthetic hydrocarbon fuel.

How does BTL differ from bio diesel or bioethanol?

bio diesel And bioethanol production uses parts of plants such as oil, sugar, starch, or cellulose. BTL production uses entire plants or a carbonaceous material.

What process are used for BTL?

Fisher Tropsch

Fisher Tropsch Polymerises gaseous Carbon and hydrogen into hydrocarbon liquid.

The input is a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen called syngas.

In BTL The syngas Is made By the gasification Of the biomass.

The Fisher Tropsch product of polymerised syngas is a hydrocarbon for fuel.

Flash pyrolysis

Flash pyrolysis Produces bio oil, char and gas.

Temperatures of 350 to 550°C are used for minuscule residence times of less than a second. It is the residence time that gives this kind of pyrolysis it’s name. Alternatively, it is also known as anhydrous pyrolysis.

Catalytic fast pyrolysis

Catalytic fast pyrolysis is a fast process Cellos is broken down into liquid bio fuel. The cellulose is heated to 500° C in less than one second in a chamber to break apart The molecules. Catalyst is used that forms chemical reactions that removes oxygen bonds and form carbon rings. The products are gasoline, water, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide.

Pyrolysis and gasification

Initially biomass undergoes pyrolysis to produce pyrolysis gases and biochar.

The volatile organic compounds in pyrolysis gases further undergo gasification to make syngas. The hydrogen and carbon Monoxide mixture of seas is converted to methanol. Biochar is converted to ethanol with hydrogen. 

Grassoline

What is grassoline?

Grassoline is synthetic hydrocarbon fuel that has been produced from an energy grass as the carbonaceous material.

The crop can be bamboo, sugarcane, miscanthus, sorghum or switchgrass.

UK Miscanthus

Miscanthus crop can be used as biomass for hydrocarbon fuel, or as a bedding crop for cattle and sheep. There are around 300 miscanthus Growers throughout the UK. They service large and small scale energy markets. To date there are fewer miscanthus growers in Wales.

Miscanthus in Wales

Where land is not suitable for food crop production, it may be economically viable to grow miscanthus for sustainable fuel.

The Welsh government reports 80% of the land area in Wales as LFA less favourable area. LFA land has difficult production conditions such as areas where land, climatic and cultivation conditions are poor.

Hardy Welsh mountain sheep farming is favoured over arable farming The growing of miscanthus could provide a diverse income stream for Welsh farmers.

Camelina sativa

camelina could help solve not one but two environmental problems at once. While cutting the carbon footprint of aviation in line with international attempts to combat climate change, it could also replenish agricultural soils that have lost their fertility due to intensive farming and degradation caused by erosion and drought.

high oil content and ability to grow on the least nutritious of soils, withstand drought and low temperatures 

 it can be grown during periods of time when agricultural land needs rest to replenish nutrients.

« They can pay to recover soil and, through sustainable rotation between food, feed and energy crops, they can maintain or even implement food production where otherwise it would not be economically doable.”« 

David Chiaramonti, a professor of Systems for Energy and Environment and Energy Economics at the Polytechnic of Turin in Italy and leader of the EU-funded BIO4A project

Camelina for military jets

In 2011, the USAF conducted an experimental test flight at Edwards AFB, in California, using an F-22 Raptor fighter, powered by a 50:50 blend of military-grade kerosene and biofuel made from camelina.