Torrefaction and 
gasification of biomass 
The potential of torrefaction combined with 
entrained‐flow gasification for production of 
synthesis‐gas 
 
MSc. thesis 
 
 
 
Anna­Maria Eriksson 
 
 
 
 
Department of Chemical Engineering and Technology 
Division of Chemical Technology 
KTH Royal Institute of Technology  
Stockholm, Sweden  
 
                                                 March 2012 
 

Torrefaction and 
gasification of biomass 
The potential of torrefaction combined with 
entrained‐flow gasification for production of 
synthesis‐gas 
 
MSc. thesis 
 
Anna­Maria Eriksson 
 
 
 
Supervisor 
 
Rolando Zanzi Vigouroux  
Department of Chemical Engineering and Technology 
Division of Chemical Technology 
KTH Royal Institute of Technology 
Stockholm, Sweden  
 
 
 
Examiner 
 
Henrik Kusar 
Department of Chemical Engineering and Technology 
Division of Chemical Technology 
KTH Royal Institute of Technology 
Stockholm, Sweden 
 
March 2012 

 
 
Abstract
Torrefaction of biomass together with gasification in entrained-flow reactors is a new possible way of
producing synthesis gas. The synthesis gas can later be used for the production of renewable liquid
fuels. This is highly desirable since the transport sector consumes a high amount of fossil fuels that
has to be exchanged for renewable fuels in the future. It is hard to tell if the technology above is an
advantageous way or not to produce synthesis gas since it is very newly developed. A lot of obstacles
exist such as the injection of the torrefied wood into the gasifier, the optimization of the ash flow
down the entrained flow reactor and the high energy consumption of the drying. Investigation in the
form of material and energy balances shows that the system can have as high energy efficiency as
73% and cold gas efficiency of 74% which is only slightly less then what the fluid-bed gasification has.
Torrefaction and gasification developers allocate huge amount of money to develop torrefaction and
entrained-flow gasification units. Interviews show that many experts believe that the technology will
be commercial and used to produce renewable liquid fuels in the future.
Sammanfattning
Torrefiering som en förbehandlingsmetod till suspensionsförgasning är ett nytt sätt att producera
syntesgas. Syntesgasen kan andvändas för att producera flytande förnyelsebara bränslen. Detta är
mycket eftertraktat då de fossila flytande bränslena vi andvänder i dag måste bytas ut inom en snar
framtid. Det är svårt att veta om torrefiering tillsammans men suspensionsförgasare är ett
konkurenskraftigt sätt att producera flytande bränslen på då det är en mycket nyutvecklad teknik.
Det finns många hinder i teknologin som måste övervinnas, som till exempel injiceringen av
biomassan i suspensionsförgasaren, optimiseringen av askflödet längs förgasarens väggar och den
höga energikonsumptionen som torkningen kräver. Undersökningar gjorda i form av material och
energibalanser visar att systemet har en energi effektivitet på 73% och en kallgaseffektivitet på 74%,
vilket är lite mindre än vad fuidbäddförgasaren har, om inte gas reningen inkluderas. Utvecklare av
torrefiering och förgasnings har allokerat stora summor pengar för att utveckla denna teknik och
intervjuver visar att många experter tror att teknologin kommer att bli ett kommersiellt sätt att
producera förnyelsebara flytande bränslen på.

2
Table of Contents
Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... 1
Sammanfattning ...................................................................................................................................... 2
1. Introduction..................................................................................................................................... 6
1.1 Background.............................................................................................................................. 6
1.2 Problem formulation ..................................................................................................................... 7
1.3 Aims and objective ........................................................................................................................ 7
2. Methodology ....................................................................................................................................... 8
2.1 Definitions of the used methods ................................................................................................... 8
2.2 The literature review ..................................................................................................................... 8
2.3 The case study ............................................................................................................................... 8
2.4 The set up of material and energy balances ................................................................................. 8
2.5 Interviews through phone and mail .............................................................................................. 9
3. Raw material...................................................................................................................................... 10
3.1 Access and demand of biomass .................................................................................................. 10
3.2 Wood composition ...................................................................................................................... 12
4. Torrefaction ....................................................................................................................................... 14
4.1 Chemistry of torrefaction ............................................................................................................ 15
4.3 Grindability ............................................................................................................................ 17
4.4 Parameters that influence the torrefaction process ............................................................. 18
4.5 Torrefaction technologies ........................................................................................................... 19
4.5.1 Rotary drum reactor ............................................................................................................. 20
4.5.2 Moving bed reactor .............................................................................................................. 21
4.5.3 Screw reactor (Auger)........................................................................................................... 21
4.5.4 Multiple hearths Furnace ..................................................................................................... 21
4.5.5 Fluidized bed reactor ............................................................................................................ 21
4.5.6 Torbed reactor...................................................................................................................... 22
4.5.7 Belt dryer reactor ................................................................................................................. 22
4.4.10 Microwave reactor ............................................................................................................. 22
5. Products............................................................................................................................................. 23
5.1 Torrefied wood ............................................................................................................................ 23
5.2 Synthesis gas................................................................................................................................ 24
5.3 Second generation fuels .............................................................................................................. 25
5.4 Torrefied pellets .......................................................................................................................... 25

3
6. Gasification Processes ....................................................................................................................... 27
6.1 Introduction................................................................................................................................. 27
6.3. Fluidized bed gasification reactor .............................................................................................. 29
6.4 Entrained flow gasification reactor ............................................................................................. 30
6.5 Feeding systems for pressurized entrained flow reactor ............................................................ 32
6.5 The Gas treatment system .......................................................................................................... 33
7. Pelletisation of torrefied biomass ..................................................................................................... 34
8. Implementation ................................................................................................................................. 36
9. Torrefaction developers .................................................................................................................... 39
9.1 Topell Energy ............................................................................................................................... 39
9.2 Stramproy Green ......................................................................................................................... 40
9.3 Torr Coal ...................................................................................................................................... 40
9.4 Global Bio-Coal Energy Inc. ......................................................................................................... 40
9.5 Energy research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN) ...................................................................... 40
9.6 River Basin Energy ....................................................................................................................... 41
9.7 Integro Earth Fuels ...................................................................................................................... 41
9.9 ThyssenKrupp Uhde..................................................................................................................... 41
9.91 The BioTfuel project .............................................................................................................. 42
9.10 BioEndev AB .............................................................................................................................. 42
9.10.1 The pilot plant .................................................................................................................... 43
10. The potential and obstacles for torrefaction and entrained-flow gasification according to experts.
............................................................................................................................................................... 45
11. Material and energy balances ......................................................................................................... 47
11.1 System 1. Torrefaction in combination with entrained flow gasification ................................. 47
11.1.1 Process description............................................................................................................. 47
11.1.2 Material-and energy balances ............................................................................................ 47
11.2 System 2: The fluidized bed gasification ................................................................................... 50
11.2.1 Process description............................................................................................................. 50
11.2.2 Material and energy- balances ........................................................................................... 50
13. Analysis & discussion ....................................................................................................................... 53
13.1 Torrefaction development today .............................................................................................. 53
13.2 The Process................................................................................................................................ 53
13.2.1 The material and energy balances ..................................................................................... 53
13.3.3 The choice of torrefaction reactor ......................................................................................... 54

4
 13.3.1 The formation of pellets ..................................................................................................... 55
13.3 Potential obstacles to overcome in the technology.................................................................. 55
13.4 The situation of today ............................................................................................................... 56
14. Conclusions ...................................................................................................................................... 58
15. Abbreviations .................................................................................................................................. 59
16. Acknowledgement........................................................................................................................... 60
Work Cited............................................................................................................................................. 61
Appendix 1............................................................................................................................................. 67
Appendix 2- Material and energy balance data for torrefaction .......................................................... 68
Appendix 3–Material and energy balances over entrained flow gasification and efficiency calculation
............................................................................................................................................................... 70

5
 1. Introduction

1.1 Background
A replacement of fossil fuel is, as we all know,
know needed due to itss environmental impacts and
decreasing availability. In the transport sector in Sweden almost all used energy consists of fossil
fuels, it is therefore a sector that needs to be focused on when it comes to the abolition
aboli of fossil
energy sources (Swedish Energy Agency, 2010). 2010) The engines of cars and the infrastructure
infras
surrounding the fuel are today all adapted to liquid energy carriers such as gasoline or diesel;
therefore it would be an advantage if a renewable liquid fuel suitable to the engines of today could
be found. One possible way of producing liquid fuels is through the synthesis of second generation
fuels through biomassass gasification with synthesis-gas
synthesis as an intermediate
rmediate product. The synthesis-gas
in this technology is formed through biomass gasification and is later converted to a liquid fuel, for
example by Fisher-Tropsch
Tropsch synthesis. The whole production of biomass
biomass to liquid fuel is called
“Biomass to liquid” (BTL) (The german energy agency, 2006).
2006) One example of a simplified BTL can be
seen in Figure 1.

asification is an old commercialized process that has

Fluidized-bed gasification has taken place with coal as raw-
raw
material, but biomass gasification
gasificatio is not yet that developed, but there are technologies of biomass
bioma
gasification available today.
ay. One common technology is the fluidized bed reactor, however
h one
disadvantage with the fluidized bed reactor is that it is hard to pressurize.
pressurize. High pressure in the
gasification process is advantageous
dvantageous since the synthesis-gas
synthesis gas need to be at high pressure for further
production of bio-fuel and also a smaller cheaper reactor can be used if a higher pressure is applied.
applied
The production of synthesis-gas gas at high pressure prevents insertion of expensive compression steps
in the biomass to liquid chain.

flow reactor is another commonly used gasification technology that has several
The entrained-flow
benefits;
ts; however this reactor requires pretreatment off the biomass to work for biomass.

Torrefaction today is a hot subject among companies around the world. The companies want to use
the technology as a pre-treatment
treatment of biomass and use the product as replacement of conventional
pellets that is used in co-firing
iring boilers and as a raw material for the production
production of biofuels. The use of
torrefaction
orrefaction in a biomass to liquid chain has many advantages. In this project the torrefaction process
in connection withith entrained flow reactors is treated.

Figure 1. Simplified biomass to liquid

l chain with torrefaction
efaction as one step

6
1.2 Problem formulation
It would be an advantage to use the entrained flow reactor to form synthesis gas since it is easy to
pressurize and have a higher conversion of biomass than the fluidized bed reactors. The pressurizing
is an advantage since it prevents the investment of expensive compressors in the process and it
keeps the size of large scale reactors down. As mentioned before, the use of entrained flow reactors
is only possible if the wood has gone through pretreatment due to limits of the feeding system of the
entrained flow reactor. There are energy losses in the torrefaction process and it is a capital
investment to develop and insert an additional process step. Whether torrefaction connected with
the entrained-flow is an advantageous way of producing synthesis gas or not is not clear at the
moment, since no commercial scale of torrefaction and no entrained flow biomass gasification exist
today (Olofsson, 2011).

1.3 Aims and objective

This project aims to investigate if torrefaction in combination with a pressurized entrained-flow
reactor is a competitive way of producing synthesis gas out of biomass. The objectives of the projects
are to:

• Present a detailed description of the torrefaction process and the problems of it.
• Present a description of biomass gasification and the problems of it.
• Describe modern torrefaction processes that are planned or built today.
• Conduct interviews with experts in the field of torrefaction and gasification to identify
obstacles and solutions of torrefaction in combination with entrained-flow reactors and the
general faith in the technology as a commercial method for producing liquid fuels.
• Perform a material and energy balance on a torrefaction and entrained flow reactor(called
System 1 in the report)
• Present material- and energy balance over a fluidized bed gasification system (called System
2 in the report).

7
2. Methodology

2.1 Definitions of the used methods

The method in this thesis is abductive. Abductive methods imply that the method is a mixture of
inductive methods and deductive methods. Inductive methods are methods that imply gathering of
theoretical information to draw a theoretical conclusion. Deductive methods imply that a hypothesis
is proved empirically (Wallen, 1996). The inductive part in this thesis is the gathering of information
to the literature survey and the deductive part is the set up of the material and energy balances
(which consist of calculations) and interviews and the evaluation of them.

The study is of a so called descriptive and explorative kind. It is descriptive in the way that it
describes phenomenas such as torrefaction and gasification. The study is explorative in the meaning
that it explores how energy and material flows behave in the system at certain conditions.

2.2 The literature review

The literature review aims to gain knowledge of the theory behind the technology used in the
investigated system and also to identify problems within the system. It also aims to describe how the
techniques suit the situation of today (is there enough raw-materials and is the technology
competitive in comparison with the technology related to similar products). Since the aim of the
literature study is of technical art mainly technical and scientifically reports and article are reviewed.
Developers’ homepages are reviewed to gain knowledge of their technologies. Statistic material is
reviewed to see how the situation for biofuel is today.

2.3 The case study

The general aim of a case study is to study a specific case to see how the reality is, this is often not
the same as in the theory. The aim of these specific case studies was to see how far the technologies
that exist today have come, and to see if there exist any new innovative solutions within the
technologies. The aim is also to see if the developers of the technologies manage to run the
processes in a feasible way. The cases that were studied were torrefaction developers in the form of
companies and it were conducted through pone and one was also conducted through a study visit.
Many companies were called and briefly investigated. Two companies were studied in more detail,
one through phone and mail and one through study visit.

2.4 The set up of material and energy balances

The set up of material and energy balances aims to be an independent analysis of the
competitiveness of torrefaction in combination with entrained-flow gasification for the production of
synthesis gas. The meaning is that it should be clear how much energy and material that is lost during
the process and how much energy that is required in the process. The material- and energy- balances
are set up based on specific cases that have been designed with the help of literature and experts in
the field.
One material-and energy balance will be preformed over torrefaction in combination with entrained
flow gasification (System 1) and another one over a fluidized bed (System 2). The balance over the
fluidized bed will just be used as a reference to System 1 , the process design and data already exist
for the system, the only thing that is done in this report is adjustment of the data to another scale. A
simplification of the chosen process configuration for System 1 can be seen in Figure 11 and the
process configuration of system 2 can be seen in Figure 9.

8
2.5 Interviews through phone and mail
The aim with the interviews is to identify the bottle necks of the technologies and to see if experts in
the area believe that the technology can be commercialized in the future or not. The decision to
interview researchers and experts in the area were made since they have a detailed picture of how
the technology works and since they have conducted experiments which leads that they easily can
detect the problems with the technologies. The background of the person interviewed is varying in
the sense that some person has a more theoretical background and some people have a more
practical background (i.e. they have actually taken part in build the units). The persons Interviewed
where:

Ingemar Olofsson: PHd at Umeå University and member of the company BioEndev

Weihong Yang: Researcher in the field of torrefaction at KTH

Anders Nordwaeger: Phd at Umeå University

Klas Engvall: Professor at KTH

Henrik Kusar:Assistant professor at KTH

Sebastian Fendt: Engineer at the University of Munich

Van der Drift: Researcher in the field of gasification and torrefaction at ECN

9
3. Raw material
Biomass is biological material from living or recently living organisms and the raw material for
torrefaction. Today most of the developing torrefaction plants use wood chips of a size with a narrow
band-width. Agricultural biomasses are a challenge for torrefaction since it easily ignites due to its
low bulk density and long fibers (Kleinschmidt, 2011).

3.1 Access and demand of biomass

Sweden is the third largest country in European Union and more than half of its area is covered with
wood, which is 23 billions of hectares (Swedish National Board of Forestry, 2011). The production of
wood and pulp products is the economical base for the forestry in Sweden, but the by-products have
developed to an increasing importance for the forestry industry and the forester in the form of wood
fuel. The logging residues (i.e. Branches and roots) that are formed during logging can be used as an
energy resource and the wood from the culling can be seen either as an energy resource or energy
use, other residues such as sawdust, black liquor is also energy sources. The fact that all these
residues from the forestry can be used as energy resources leads to that less competition about the
wood between the forestry and the energy sector exists, but rather a natural interplay where the
growing forestry contribute to a higher source of wood fuels (Herland, 2005).

The biomass potential for liquid fuel production has been investigated by several persons and
authorities with various results, depending of what’s included in the investigation. In an
investigation by SLU the biomass potential showed in Table 1 Table 1. The biomass potential to make
liquid fuels according to was estimated.

Table 1. The biomass potential to make liquid fuels according to (SKA99, Skogliga konsekvensanalyser, 1999)

Biofuels TWh
Bi-products and recycled wood 26
Fuel logging 23
Logging residues (GROT) 45
TOTAL (Not included black liquor) 94
Black liquor (if no change in the pulp industry occurs) 34
TOTAL 128

By looking at data in Fel! Hittar inte referenskälla. it can be concluded that there exist a great
potential for production of bio-fuels from wood supplies in Sweden today. The potential is also
foreseen to increase since the Swedish woods are growing every year with 100 billions of cubic
meters, this means that we grow more than we use today. Researcher thinks that in 10 years it will
be possible to take out the double amount of wood than what is possible to day (Swedish National
Board of Forestry, 2011) .In an investigation made by Svebio with the support of the Swedish Energy
agency it was shown that the bio-energy potential will be doubled in a range of 20 to 30 years to 220
TWh from 100 TWh which is the potential today according to Svebio (Fokus Bioenergi faktablad nr 2,
2004).

10
The energy consumed within the transport sector today can be seen in Table 2, as can be seen the
transport sector stands for a small part of the total energy used in Sweden. The goal is that all sectors
presented in Table 2 shall use mostly renewable energy. The absolute largest part of the energy
consumed in the transport sector is through car fuels and today it consists mainly of fossil fuels.
(Energimyndigheten, 2010)

Table 2. The total use of energy in Sweden. (Swedish Energy Agency, 2011)

Sectors Energy use 2010

(TWh)
Industry 117
National transports 128
Residential services, etc 222
International transports and use for non energy 68
purposes
TOTAL 568

A small part of the bio-fuels available today is used to produce liquid fuels, the bigger part is used for
the production of district heat and in the industry see (Swedish Energy Agency, 2010).

9% 12%
2%

31%
46%

dwellings and service transports distric heating industry electricity production

Figure 2. The use of biomass in the Swedish industry sectors (Swedish Energy Agency, 2010)

The price on wood chips in Sweden today is approximately 22 Euro/MWh and the price of coal is 13
Euro/MWh (that includes import prices, insurances and shipping of the coal to Sweden). The price of
the biomass varies somewhat depending on where in the country it is grown. The price given above
is an average price (Pöyry, 2011).

11
3.2 Wood composition
The most common wood species in Sweden are Spruce (42 %), Pine (39%) and Birch (12 %). Some
amount of short rotation wood; mostly Willow (Salix) is also grown in Sweden, but the amount of
energy crops is almost negligible compare to the rest of the wood supply (Swedish National Board of
Forestry, 2011) .

Wood is sometimes called lignocellulosic material, this means that it mainly consists of the three
polymers hemicellulose, cellulose and lignin. It also contains some extractives and minerals (Cassidy
& Ashton, 2007). Wood can be divided into hardwood and softwood, where spruce and pine is
examples of softwood and birch and willow of hardwood (Mark J Prins et Al, 2006b). Generally
Hardwood has less resin and burn slower and longer compared to softwood (The Engineering Tool
box a).

Hemicellulose
Hemicellulose consists of pentose and furanose sugar carbohydrates and it is a non-homogenous
polysaccharide. The hemicelluloses of deciduous wood is containing more xylan and the
hemicelluloses of coniferous wood is containing a larger part of glucomannan The reactivity of the
hemicellulose is greatest of all the three constituents of biomass, but the range of the reactivity is
depending on the structure of the hemicellulose. Glucomannan is more reactive in the temperature
range of torrefaction than what xylan is (Mark J Prins et Al, 2006b). Different type of wood contains
different amount of hemicelluloses but as an average 25 to 35 % of dry wood consist of
hemicelluloses (Cassidy & Ashton, 2007).

Cellulose
Cellulose is normally the main component in the cell walls for true plants. About 50% of the dry mass
consists of cellulose, this make cellulose outstanding as the most common bio-compound on earth.
Cellulose is a polymer composed of glucose chains and is one of the longest known linear
polysaccharides (Cassidy & Ashton, 2007).

Lignin
15 to 25 % of dry wood consists of lignin. Lignin is an aromatic polymer that holds together the
cellulose and hemicellulose components of the woody biomass (Cassidy & Ashton, 2007). During the
torrefaction a small part of the mass loss comes from the degradation of lignin. The degradation of
lignin is relatively constant along the whole temperature interval (Bergman et Al, 200?).

Wood types have various lignocellulose compositions, this need to be considered when dealing with
the production of bio-fuel and torrefaction (Mark J Prins et Al, 2006b). In Fel! Hittar inte
referenskälla. the chemical composition of some wood types is listed.

Table 3. The chemical composition of hardwood and softwood (Mark J Prins et Al, 2006b) (Bergman et Al, 200?)

Wood type Cellulose Hemicellulose Lignin

Hard wood 40-44 15-35 18-25
Softwood 40-44 20-32 25-35
Larch 26 27.2 35
Willow 50 19 25

12
The elemental composition of wood varies depending on the specie, in an investigation made by
(Mark J Prins et Al, 2006b) the average composition of some different species of wood was found,
the result from the investigation is presented in Table 4. The composition of beech and straw can
represent the composition of all hard woods and larch the composition all soft woods.

Table 4.The elemental composition of some wood material (Mark J Prins et Al, 2006b)

Ash Volatiles C H N O
Beech 1.2 82.7 47.2 6.0 0.4 45.2
Willow 1.6 81.4 47.2 6.1 0.34 44.8
Larch 0.1 82.8 48.8 6.1 0.10 44.9
Straw 7.1 79 44.3 5.8 0.4 42.4

The energy content of wood is highly dependent on the moisture content since heat is consumed if
water needs to be evaporated from the material. Dry wood is therefore preferred in torrefaction and
biomass gasification processes; this means that an energy consuming drying step is needed. The
energy needed to evaporate water from the wet wood is relatively easy to make use of; this makes
the process relatively energy effective even if the addition of heat is required (The Swedish wood fuel
agency, 2009).

The data available for energy content of wood varies a great deal, but approximate values are given
in Table 5

Table 5 energy density for selected wood-species (The Engineering Tool box a) (hearth, 2011)

Wood Energy density , Dry

species [MJ/kg]
Paper Birch 16.5 18.9
Spruce 16.5 19.9
Pine 16.5

13
4. Torrefaction
Torrefaction is a slow pyrolysis that takes place around 225˚ C to 300 ˚C in an inert atmosphere and
at atmospheric pressure (Mark J Prins et Al, 2006a). Inert atmosphere is important since it prevents
ignition and oxidation of the biomass (Nordin et Al, 200?). Torrefaction increases the suitability of the
biomass as a raw-material in among others the gasification process and it is often used as a pre-
treatment step for biomass gasification and co-firing of biomass with coal. Torrefaction used as a pre-
treatment method can even be essential for the utilization of some types of gasification reactors.
(Bergman et Al, 2005a). During torrefaction of biomass the mass of the material is decreasing more
than its energy content, this leads to higher energy density of the material which in its turn leads to a
cheaper and less volume consuming transports and storage (Berglund, 2011). The energy content is
typically around 90% of its original energy content and the mass approximately 70% after
torrefaction, this is visualized in Figure 3. The higher loss in mass compared to energy content leads
to an increased energy density by a factor of 1.3 on a mass basis (Bergman et Al, 2005b).

The biomass ability to take up water is decreasing to a high extent after torrefaction, this in part
leads to that biomass has less likeliness to be poisoned by bacteria that flourish in moist
environments. It is also an advantage during storage where untreated biomass often takes up water
again after drying and a second energy demanding drying step is needed. (Bergman et Al, 2005a).
One additional good feature that is gained after torrefaction is that the biomass becomes brittle, this
makes it easier to grind and easier to inject in the entrained-flow reactor. The power savings from
the grinding can be as much as 70% to 90% compared to biomasses that are not torrefied. The
biomass composition also becomes more homogeneous after torrefaction; this makes the biomass
easier to handle in a process (Nordin et Al, 200?).

Some drawbacks with the addition of a torrefaction unit are that some amount of energy from the
biomass is lost during the process. Torrefaction also requires energy input in the form of heat (it
consumes energy); further the installation of a torrefaction unit is a capital investment. However in
many cases these drawbacks can be outrivaled by the positive effects gained during torrefaction.
(Bridgeman et Al, 2008). There are still obstacles to be overcomed concerning the torrefaction
technology before it can be used commercially.

A typical torrefaction process is presented in Figure 3, it is presumed to comprise of chopping, drying,

torrefaction and cooling. The cooling is needed to prevent spontaneous combustion after the process
(Bergman et Al, 2005a).

Figure 3. A general flow scheme of the torrefaction process modified picture from
(Bergman et Al, 2005a). Mu stands for mass units and eu for energy units.

14
The look of torrefied woods can be seen in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Torrefied wood. Source: (Heyl & Patterson blog, 2011)

4.1 Chemistry of torrefaction

The torrefaction can be divided into stages where the “real torrefaction” is only one stage in the total
process. The time used for the real torrefaction is much shorter than the residence time for the total
torrefaction process. (Bergman et Al, 2005a) The stages for the total torrefaction process are:

• Initial drying- The temperature of the biomass is increased and at the end of this stage the
evaporation of water starts.
• Pre-drying- Water is evaporated from the biomass at a constant rate. Here the temperature
is constant till the moisture content of the biomass starts to decrease.
• Post-drying and intermediate heating – The temperature is increased to 200˚C and physically
bound water is released. The biomass is practically free from moist after this step. Some of
the mass is lost, for example small organic compounds that evaporate.
• Torrefaction – The torrefaction step consist of three steps, heating, constant temperature
and cooling. The devolatilization starts during the heating period and is continuous over the
constant temperature period and stops at the cooling period. The temperature for
torrefaction varies for different biomasses; it is often in the range of 230˚C to 300˚ C.
• Solids cooling-The product is further cooled after the torrefaction step to the desired
temperature, no decomposition occurs. Cooling is important to interrupt the pyrolysis.

Table 6. Formed compounds during torrefaction divided in phases, modified table from Bergman et Al (2005a)

Solid Liquid (condensable gas) Gas

(permanent)
Original sugar structure Water H2, CO, CO2,
Modified sugar structure Organics: CH4
Newly formed polymeric (sugars, poly sugars, acid, alcohols, furans and CxHy, toluene
structures ketones) and benzene
Char Lipids:
Ash Terpens, phenols, fatty acids, waxes and tanins

During torrefaction three phases are formed: one solid (that is the desired product), one liquid and
one gas phase. The chemical composition of the different phases differs for various wood types,
mainly because their different compositions of their hemicelluloses. (Bergman et Al, 2005a). The

15
volatile compounds that are formed are divided in to condensable and no condensable compounds,
where the condensable are defined as liquids and the non condensable as gases. (Bergman et Al,
2005a). In Table 6 the formed components are presented.

The composition of the condensable gaseous phase at various temperatures and residence times was
evolved during experiments, the data that was obtained for Larch tree can be seen in Figure 5 and
Figure 6. (Mark J Prins et Al, 2006b)

Figure 5. The composition of the formed

ormed condensable gases (liquids) during torrefaction at
various temperature and residence-time.
residence (Mark J Prins et Al, 2006b)

Figure 6. The composition of the

he formed non condensable gases for Larch at different temperatures and times. (Mark J
Prins et Al, 2006b)-

The reaction mechanism of torrefaction is complex and involves several reactions, what mainly
happens is that hemicellulose is degraded. The main condensable liquids formed (acetic acid and

16
water) are ascribed to the decomposition of hemicelluloses (Van der Stelt, 2011). The decomposition
of cellulose is also an important reaction mechanism; it is believed to be the reason to why the
biomass loses its tenacity and structure. A small degradation of cellulose starts at low temperatures
(lower than 200˚ C), but the reaction rate of the degradation is increasing with higher temperatures
and takes place at a high rate above 200˚C (Bergman et Al, 2005b). When temperatures around
250°C are reached, extensive devolatilization of the biomass starts (Van der Stelt, 2011).
Depolymerization and devolatilization/softening of lignin are a third type of reaction that takes place
in the torrefaction reactor (Nordin et Al, 200?). The softening of lignin is important and contributes
to the densification of the biomass (Bergman et Al, 2005b).

As mentioned earlier the biomass become hydrophobe after torrefaction, this is due to that the
degradation of OH-groups. This reduces the biomass ability to form hydrogen bonds together with
for example water (Bergman et Al, 2005a).

The reaction-enthalpy of the torrefaction is not entirely known and can vary for different wood
types. For most wood types the torrefaction is exothermic (as for example pine and grass), therefore
cooling is often necessary during torrefaction (Olofsson, 2011) . The reason for that torrefaction is
exothermic seems to be due to exothermic condensation reactions that compensate for endothermic
decomposition reactions (Kiel et Al, 2008) According to investigations the reaction becomes more
exothermic with increasing torrefaction temperature (Van der Stelt, 2011).

4.3 Grindability
The energy consumption for grinding is lower for torrefied biomass than for untreated biomass. The
amount of energy that is saved depends partly on which type of raw material that is used. Tests have
shown that spruce needed to be treated with a 20 ˚C higher temperature than beech to obtain the
same grinding energy. This means that different biomass materials need different temperatures to
obtain the same lowering effect in grinding energy. The grinding energy decreased linearly from 250
kWh/t to 27 KWh/t when the torrefaction temperatures were allowed to increase from 180 ˚C to
280°C. For spruce the grinding energy was decreased from 127 kWh/t to 16KWh/t when the
temperature of the torrefaction processes was increased from 200 ˚C to 300 ˚C (Govin et Al, 2009).

Figure 7. Energies for grinding of beech and spruce to a particle size of 0.5 mm as a function of torrefaction temperature
(Govin et Al, 2009)

17
The influence of the torrefaction time on the amount of energy required for grinding is shown in
Figure 8. From this graph it can be seen that time of torrefaction does not influence the required
grinding energy as much as temperatures, as long as it is above 5 min.

Figure 8. The required energy for grinding of beach at different torrefaction residence time. (Govin et Al, 2009)

The particle size distribution gained after grinding is improved with torrefaction. Experiments
showed that the particle sizes decreases with higher temperatures. They also showed that the
particle distribution after grinding is highly dependent on what kind of raw material that is used
(Govin et Al, 2009). It can be concluded that the torrefaction decreases both the required energy for
grinding and also the gained particle size distribution after grinding. It can also be concluded that the
energy needed for grinding is smaller if the torrefaction is carried out at a higher temperature.

4.4 Parameters that influence the torrefaction process

Developers are still struggling with the optimization of the torrefaction process. It is important to
control the main parameters such as temperature, residence time and feed particle size to get the
process to work (Kleinschmidt, 2011). According to Bergman et Al, (200?) the temperature and the
reaction time is the parameters that influence the process the most. The control of the torrefaction is
complicated due to that all parameters depend on the wood type that is used in the process which
varies. The moisture content of the biomass influence the torrefaction process in that manner that
more heat is needed to evaporate higher moisture contents (Bergman et Al, 200?).

The mass loss of biomass during torrefaction is higher for torrefaction taking place at higher
temperatures and longer residence time. The loss is increasing to a larger extent with temperature
than with residence time (Mark J Prins et Al, 2006b). According to an investigation done by Bergman
et Al,(200?.) a temperature increase from 250˚ C to 270˚C leads to that the required residence time
can be reduced from 15-30 min to 8-15 min, (i.e. the required residence time is decreasing with
higher process temperature) (Bergman et Al, 200?).

The C/O -ratio increases to a higher extent at higher temperatures which leads to a higher energy
density, if the process operated at a to high temperature the energy losses become large which will
leads to a low quality product and waste of energy (Bridgeman et Al, 2008). Longer residence time
also contribute to increased ratio of C/O and C/H, but too long residence time will give large energy
losses (Bergman et Al, 2005a). It can be concluded that the temperature in the reactor has a large
influence on the quality of the products.

18
It has been noticed throughout the report that the wood type and its composition have a strong
influence on the torrefaction process and its product. The mass losses of the biomass depend to a
large extent on the composition of the biomass. Biomasses with large content of hemicellulose have
a larger mass loss; the largest mass losses are notice for straw which has a high content of the
reactive hemicellulose content (Mark J Prins et Al, 2006b).

Preliminary investigations made by Prins et Al (2006) shows that hardwood looses considerable more
weight than softwood, even though the softwood consists of more hemicellulose than hardwood.
The reason is believed to be that the hemicellulose of hardwood consists of a greater part reactive
Xylan than the hemicelluloses of softwood. Some researchers also think that the softwood looses less
weight because of its higher content of lignin (Mark J Prins et Al, 2006a). Torrefaction of hardwood
leads to more devolatilization and carbonization than torrefaction of softwood (Van der Stelt, 2011).

4.5 Torrefaction technologies

There are several choices of process designs and technical approaches to the torrefaction process,
some of them will be discussed in short here. A summary of advantageous and disadvantages of the
torrefaction reactors are given in Table 7 followed by a more detailed description later on.

Table 7 . Advantages and disadvantages with torrefaction reactors modified from (WPAC, 2011) & (Dhungana, 2011)

Technology Advantages Disadvantages Heating

Rotary drum • Uniform heat • Low heat transfer Direct/Indirect
transfer • Scalability unproven
• Large size variation • Large footprint and cost
of biomass
Moving bed • Simple construction • Selective to biomass size Direct/Indirect
and economical and structure, due to
• High heat transfer pressure drop
• Hard to control temperature
(risk for hotspots)
• Scalability unproven
• Non uniform temp
distribution
Screw • Good biomass flow • Small up scaling possibilities
conveyor • Can take a wide • Non homogenous product
range of biomass
sizes
Multiple • Good heat transfer • Large size Direct
hearth • Good temperature
control
• Can take a wide
range of biomass
sizes
• Proven scalability
Fluidized bed • Good heat transfer • Particle size limitation Direct
• Proven scalability • Attrition of biomass and loss
• Can take a wide of fines
range of biomass • Slow temperature response
sizes

19
Torbed • Quick heat /mass • Risk for carbonization Direct
reactor transfer • Only small particles can be
• fast process control used
• small foot print
• efficient reaction
kinetics
Microwave • High heat transfer • Electric energy required Direct
reactor • Can handle large • Need to be integrated with
sizes of biomass conventional heater for
• Fast torrefaction uniform heating
• Good temperature
control

A large amount of heat is needed for the drying placed before the torrefaction. The heat could be
added by using already existing heat in the system, i.e. use a so called an autothermal solution. An
example of this is to supply the heat by combustion of the gases formed during torrefaction that
contain energy. A problem is that this gas contains a lot of incombustible gases such as vapor and
carbon dioxide (even if a dry biomass is used the gas consists of 50 wt % water and the fraction of
carbon dioxide is about 10 wt%, together this is 60 wt% of incombustible gases). (Bergman et Al,
2005a) Because of this it is questionable if the gas can be combusted or not especially if the ingoing
biomass contain some moisture. The composition of the gas is of course varying with the used
parameters in the torrefaction process, the gas contains a larger fraction of combustibles if the
torrefaction occurs at higher temperature and at longer residence times, however then more energy
is lost from the product. If the gases are not combustible, natural gas could be added and co-
combusted so that the relatively large energy content of the formed gas-stream can be utilized and
the process hence gain higher energy efficiency (Bergman et Al, 2005a). Another kind of autothermal
process that can be used is to use the gases formed from torrefaction as a quench after the gasifier,
this would lead to that the components of the formed gas would react and form some amounts of
CO and H2, in this way some of the lost energy is re-cycled (Prins, 2005).

Generally when discussing operations which comprise heating, for example drying, pyrolysis or
gasification the heating mode can be divided in to direct or indirect heating. When using the indirect
heating means that reactants have indirect contact with the heating carrier by for example a wall. Or
it is directly heated where the biomass is in direct contact with a gaseous heat carrier. Examples of
reactors that use indirect heating are screw reactors and rotating drums (NORAM, 2011).

4.5.1 Rotary drum reactor

The rotary drum reactor tumbles the biomass in the presence of inert gases that are heated; this
technology is common used for the set up of pilot plants among companies today. The rotary drum
can either be heated directly or indirectly. The direct heating way is to pass heated gases through the
reactor drum. The indirect heating way is to heat the reactor and the biomass and gases through the
shell of the reactor (Olofsson, 2011). Drawbacks with the rotary drum reactor are that it is hard to
scale up (the sizes of it becomes too large after up scaling since the heat transfer area is limited)
(Ullrich, 2011). Other disadvantages are the relatively large cost of the reactor and that it is difficult
to control the temperature of the process (Dhungana, 2011). However companies that develop the
technologies today say that they have overcome this problem. For a closer understanding of how a

20
rotary drum reactor with auxiliary shaft works (which is a kind of rotary drum) se headline 8.10.1 The
pilot plant

4.5.2 Moving bed reactor

In the moving bed reactor moving wood chips are directly or indirectly heated. (Verhoeff, 2011) The
reactor is compact and relatively simple in construction, have high heat transfer rate, accurate
temperature control, uniform product quality; feed stock flexibility and low capital investment
(Tumuluru et Al, 2010).

Disadvantages are that the up scaling of the reactor can be hard, due to pressure. The pressure drop
also has effect on the biomass particle size that is possible to use in the reactor. Another thing is that
the temperature distribution is not uniform especially for indirect heated reactors (Dhungana, 2011).

4.5.3 Screw reactor (Auger)

In the screw reactor a screw pushes the biomass forward through the indirect heated reactor. An
example of a screw reactor is a reactor that was used in a process called the Pechiney process which
was one of the early demonstration plants that was built for torrefaction. The reactor was indirectly
heated with oil that was heated by a separated boiler (Bergman et Al, 2005a).

These types of rectors provide a continuous process and they have a compact design. A disadvantage
with the screw reactor is that the reactor is hard to scale up, and have relatively low energy
efficiency (60-80%). The reactor also demands a low moisture content on the feed since the size of
the reactor is determined by required heat duty, as they have limited heat exchange. If a to high heat
duty is required as it is for biomass with high moisture content the reactor have to be very big which
is not feasible (Bergman et Al, 2005a).

4.5.4 Multiple hearths Furnace

A multiple hearth furnace is a vertical cylindrical refractory lined steel shell furnace. It contains 6 to
12 horizontal hearths and a rotating center shaft with rabble arms. Cooling air is introduced into the
shaft. The biosolids enter the top hearth and flow downwards while combustion air flows from the
bottom to the top. A picture of the reactor can be seen in (Dangtran, 2000).

An example of a multiple hearth furnace is the Wyssmont dryer that was an early developed
torrefaction method, the Wyssmont dryer is also often called for the Turbo Dryer. During the
torrefaction the reactor is air locked and superheated steam and Nitrogen are used in a recirculation
atmosphere. The multiple hearths furnaces are easily scalable and the dryers are manufactures in all
sizes between 4 and 35 feet in diameter (Ontario Power Generation, 2010).The heat transfer in a
multiple hearth furnace is good and it is easy to control the temperature in the reactor. One
drawback with the reactor is that it is large (Dhungana, 2011).

4.5.5 Fluidized bed reactor

In a fluidized bed the goal is to let the wood fluidize with the help of for example superheated steam.
A large force is needed to keep the wood chips in a fluidized state, and for wood chips of too large
size this is not possible. The size of the wood particles that are going to be fluidized cannot either be
too small since they then will easily coagulate with water and loose its ability to fluidize. Hence the
reactor is very sensitive to the particle size. According to River Basin energy normal sized wood chips
can be used in their reactor. The size of the wood chips will change during the torrefaction, this also
make it difficult to control the fluidization behavior of it. A possible disadvantage with the fluidized

21
bed is that the fluidized bed has a slow temperature response. The advantages of a fluidized bed are
that it has good heat transfer properties and that the scaling abilities are good (Dhungana, 2011).

4.5.6 Torbed reactor

In the Torbed reactor a diffuse bed of particles are held in cyclonic motion while exposed to a high
velocity toroidal gas stream (Ukrainian Biofuel Portal, 2012). The Torbed reactor can only handle
small wood particles which lead to a small feed flexibility. A toroidal flow is created by injecting a
fluidization medium of 50 to 80 m/s through stationary angled blades. The required residence for the
torrefaction time is 90 sec to 5 min at a temperature of 280˚C and the product throughput is high;
however there is a risk of carbonization due to the high temperatures (Ontario Power Generation,
2010). High turbulence inside the reactor causes intense contact between material and process air,
this make the reaction kinetics efficient and therefore short duration time for specific process. There
is also a low pressure drop which leads to high energy efficiencies (Topell Energy, 2009).

4.5.7 Belt dryer reactor

The biomass is transported through a heated reactor with the help of a belt. This method ensures
that all biomass particles have the same residence time. The up-scaling possibility of this reactor is
limited due to the limitation of the belt size. Maximum size is believed to be 5t/h (Ontario Power
Generation, 2010). Advantages with the belt dryer are that it has a good temperature control and
that a lot of different sizes of the biomass can be torrefied in the reactor; however formed products
is not homogenous (Dhungana, 2011).

4.4.10 Microwave reactor

In the microwave reactor the biomass is heated through microwaves, the microwaves are
electromagnetic radiation of 100-300 MW that makes the polar molecules to rotate in the same
frequency as the microwaves, this causes friction and heating of the biomass. The generation of
microwaves demands a lot of electricity (Budarin, 2011).

The reactor can handle large sizes of biomass and the torrefaction process in the microwave reactor
is relatively fast and the temperature in the reactor is easy to control. However if a homogenous
heating is wanted (and subsequently a homogenous product) the microwave reactor needs to be
integrated with a conventional heater (Dhungana, 2011).

22
5. Products
The aim of the project is to study a part of the biomass to liquid chain (BTL-chain). The final product
in the BTL-chain is a liquid energy carrier, but the final product investigated in the project is the
synthesis gas. In order to gain understanding for the requirements that the final product of the BTL
chain has on the different stages of the process a general and brief description of the production and
characteristics of the products involved in the process is made. Some of the facts are also presented
so that they can be used in the material and energy balances.

5.1 Torrefied wood

After torrefaction the composition of biomass is changed towards a more “coal like” composition and
energy content. Advantages with torrefied wood compared to coal are that it has lower ash content
than coal, the mineral content of the torrefied wood is lower and it is more reactive (Yang, 2011)
(Hopkins, 200?). That torrefied wood is more reactive means a lower temperature is needed for
gasification of it compared to coal (Yang, 2011). However the reactivity of the torrefied wood is lower
than the reactivity of biomass, this is not advantageous since higher temperatures is required for it to
react (Yang, 2011), but compared to all the good gained properties this may be a low price to pay

Prins et Al (2006) studied the elemental composition of different biomasses before and after
torrefaction at different temperatures and residence times. The composition of the biomass (Willow)
after torrefaction is presented in Table 8 (Mark J Prins et Al, 2006a). For comparison with the wood
composition before torrefaction see Table 4.

Table 8. The composition of wood after torrefaction

1
Willow Willow Willow Birch Pine
Wood (Torrefied at 250 ˚C, 30 min1) (Torrefied at 300˚C, 10 (Torrefied at 250˚C, 1 (Torrefied at 250˚C,
1 2 2
min ) houer ) 1 houer )
Raw wood 8.6% 8.6% 5.4 wt% 5.1 wt%
moisture
content
Carbon 47.2 51.3% 55.8% 51.5% 50.9%
Hydrogen 6.1 5.9 % 5.6 % 5.8% 5.8%
Oxygen 44.9 40.9% 36.3% 42.5% 43.2%
Nitrogen 0.1 0.4% 0.5% 0.15% 0.06%
Ash 1.6 1.5% 1.9%
LHV 18 19.4 21.0
1 2 3
Numbers taken from (Mark J Prins et Al, 2006b) Numbers taken from (Zanzi et Al, 2002)
(Bioenergy foundation, 2009)

The increase C/O- and C/H-ratio, leads to that the elemental composition of biomass going closer to
the one of coal and towards a higher energy density, compare Table 9 with Table 5 to see the
difference in energy density for wood and torrefied wood. Torrefied wood has a LHV around 21
MJ/kg and plain wood around 18 MJ/kg. These can be compared to the energy density of black coal
which is approximately 24 MJ/kg (Bioenergy foundation, 2009).

23
 The only compound fraction that is relatively constant before and after torrefaction is the nitrogen
this can be seen in Table 8, the moisture content after torrefaction is approximately 0.1 % after
torrefaction (Mark J Prins et Al, 2006).

Table 9. The energy density of torrefied wood species.

% Increase of energy density Energy density

1
Willow 17 20.7 MJ/kg
1
Beech 20 20.3 MJ/kg
1
Larch 7
2
Birch N/A 18.87 MJ/kg
2
Pine N/A 18.07 MJ/kg

1 2
Numbers taken from (Mark J Prins et Al, 2006b), Numbers taken from (Zanzi et Al, 2002)

The density of the torrefied wood is often lower than for wood and much lower than for coal, this
causes problem in the size when using the conventional feeding systems for coal entrained-flow
reactors. Examples of densities of different fuels can be seen in Table 10

Table 10. The density of different wood-fuels (Van der Drift et Al, 2004)
Fuel Density solid particle [kg/m3] Bulk density [kg/m3]
Coal powder 1400 700
Torrefied wood powder 475 240
Wood powder 500 250

5.2 Synthesis gas

The synthesis gas, the product from gasification, mainly consists of CO, H2 and small amounts of CH4
and N2 (In case of air blown gasifies). It can have different gas compositions and the energy content
of it varies with the composition. Syngas can be produced from several raw materials such as natural
gas, biomass or coal. It can be used for many applications such as gas turbines, engines and for
production of various products (for example liquid energy carrier) (Moulijn et Al, 2002). Different
compositions of the syngas are suitable for producing various products. The ratios suitable for
different products are presented in Table 11

Table 11. Hydrogen-carbon monoxide ratios suitable for different products (Moulijn et Al, 2002).

Synthesis gas ratio Main uses

H2 Refinery hydrotreating and hydrocracking
3H2: 1N2 Ammonia
2H2:1CO Alkenes (Fischer –Tropsch reaction)
2H2:1CO Methanol, higher alcohols
1H2:1CO Aldehydes (hydroformylation)
CO Acids (formic and acetic)

24
If the CO/ H2- ratio is not the desired one the carbon monoxide can be converted through the water
gas shift reaction, see Eq 8. This is done over a catalyst at low temperatures, since the reaction is
exothermic. The used catalyst is very sensitive to poisoning (Moulijn et Al, 2002).

Couhert et Al (2009) investigated how the torrefied biomass affects the syngas composition. Two
samples of wood torrefied at different temperatures (240˚C and 260˚C respectively) and raw wood
was gasified and the product compositions were investigated. It was shown that the torrefied wood
produced 7 wt% respectively 20 wt % more H2 and CO than the raw biomass. This was an expected
result since the O content was lower than for raw wood. The amount of CO2 was similar for both
torrefied and not torrefied wood. It was also noticed that the chars from torrefied wood are less
reactive towards steam than the char from the raw wood (Couhert et Al, 2009).

5.3 Second generation fuels

For production of second generation fuels lignocellulosic material (wood) is the used raw material in
contrast to the production of first generation fuels were products used in the food industry, for
example ethanol made from sugar cane or corn are used (Open fuel standard, 2011).

It would be convenient to convert gaseous energy carrier (such as synthesis gas) to a liquid energy
carrier, since it is easier to transport and use. Even better would it be if the syngas could be
converted to an energy carrier that could be used in commercial engines and with existing
infrastructure. There are ways to do this, for example by producing synthetic diesel or methanol from
syngas that can be directly mixed with the diesel or gasoline of today. Diesel can be produced
through the catalytically Fisher-Tropsch process (Moulijn et Al, 2002).

The Fischer Tropsch synthesis is an extremely exothermic process where the main reactions that take
place are formation of Alkanes and wgs reactions, side reactions are formation of alcohols and the
boudoir reaction. (Moulijn et Al, 2002).Various products can be formed during the F-T processes. The
formed product depends on the molar ratio of CO/H2, the choice of catalyst, the temperature and
pressure applied in the process. The hydrocarbons are formed with so called chain growth
probability; this means that the chain length of the fuel molecules is dependent on the selectivity of
the catalyst. (Moulijn et Al, 2002). A typical temperature for the production of F-T fuels is around
300˚C to 400˚C. (Schmidt et Al, 2011).The used pressure in Fischer- Tropsch reactions are higher than
atmospheric (around 15-40 bars) in pressure (Valin et Al, 2010). The Fisher-Tropsch process needs a
very clean syngas to operate.

Another example of a fuel that can be produced from wood biomass is methanol and DME. This
process also need elevated pressures (50-300bar and 15-100 bar respectively) (Valin et Al, 2010).

5.4 Torrefied pellets

Properties of torrefied pellets have been investigated by several researchers; some of the results will
be summarized and presented. The energy bulk density of the pellets have been investigated,
According to Romeo and Barno (2008) the bulk density is around 15-18 GJ/m3. In investigations made
by Khiel et Al (2008) the bulk density of the torrefied pellets was shown to be 13-17 GJ/m3.and that is
equal to an increase of 30-80% from conventional wood pellets ( Kiel et Al, 2008).

25
The mechanical strength of Torrefied pellets is twice as strong as conventional pellets; it is believed
that this mechanical strength is due to the changed properties of the lignin during torrefaction. (Kiel
et Al, 2008).The moisture content of torrefied pellets is 1-5% and they show high hygroscopic
behavior compared to wood pellets. Therefore no swelling or disintegration of the pellets occurs
during storage or transport for example (Bergman et Al, 2005b).

In Table 12 a summary of the properties of torrefied wood pellets and other biomass species is
presented, these results are obtained by (Bergman et Al, 2005b).

Table 12. Summation of the properties of conventional and torrefied biomass. (Bergman et Al, 2005b)

Properties unit Wood Torrefied Wood pellet TOP pellet

biomass low high Low high
Moisture content % wt 35 3 10 7 5 1

Calorific As MJ/kg 10.5 19.9 15.6 16.2 19.9 21.6

value received
(LHV) dry 17.7 20.4 17.7 17.7 20.4 22.7
3
Mass density bulk Kg/m 550 230 500 650 750 850
3
Energy density GJ/m 5.8 5.6 7.8 10.5 14.9 18.4
bulk
Pellet strength N/A N/A good Very good

Dust formation moderate high limited limited

Hygroscopic Water uptake hydrophob Swelling/water uptake Poor

nature swelling/hydrophobic
Biological possible impossible possible impossible
degradation
Seasonal influence high poor moderate poor
(noticeable for end
users)

26
6. Gasification Processes

6.1 Introduction
Synthesis gas can be produced through biomass gasification and subsequently gas-cleaning. The gas
formed through gasification is called producers gas, after the removal of wastes such a chloride,
sulfur, tars and particles the producers gas become synthesis gas. The synthesis gas mainly consists
of CO, H2 and small amounts of CH4 (and N2, in case of air blown gasifies). In the gasification process
various reactions take place. (Knoef, 2005). The conversion steps that the biomass generally goes
through are: drying, pyrolysis, partial oxidation and reduction (Lettner et Al, 2007).

At the lowest temperatures only steam is generated and no decomposition of the biomass takes
place, this is called drying. During pyrolysis thermal decomposition of the biomass in the absence of
oxygen occurs and the volatile fractions of the biomass are released in to the gas phase. Three
different phases are formed, one solid phase (char or charcoal), one liquid phase (pyroligneous acid
or oil) and one gaseous phase (carbon monoxide, hydrogen and nitrogen). (Knoef, 2005) The chars
and tars are later gasified.

In the temperature interval where the combustion occurs the volatile products and some of the char
reacts with oxygen and carbon monoxide and water and carbon monoxide is formed. The
combustion reactions also supply heat to the gasification and reduction reactions. Most often oxygen
is used as the oxidation agent in gasification processes, but even CO2 and steam can be used. The
different reactions taking place during the oxidation and their reaction enthalpies is presented below
(Knoef, 2005).

Partial combustions:
C + O2 → CO 2 ∆ H 298 = + 393 .8kJ / mol Eq 1

C +1 / 2O2 → CO ∆ H 298 = + 123 .1 kJ / mol Eq 2

Combustion reaction
H 2 + 1 / 2 O2 → H 2 O ∆ H 298 = + 285 .9 kJ / mol Eq 3

CO + 1 / 2O2 → CO 2 ∆ H 298 = + 283 .9 kJ / mol Eq 4

During the gasification and reduction high temperature chemical reactions take place in the absence
of oxygen, this means that these reactions only take place where there is a local depletion of oxygen.
The gasification reactions occur when the tars and chars reacts with carbon dioxide and steam to
produce carbon monoxide and hydrogen. The main reaction taking place is presented in Eq 5 to 9,
where CH4 represents the biomass: (Siedlecki et Al, 2011).

27
Dry reforming reaction (gasification reaction):
CH 4 + CO 2 → 2CO + 2 H 2 ∆ H 298 = + 247 kJ / mol Eq 5

Wet reforming reaction (gasification reaction):

CH 4 + H 2O → CO + 3 H 2 ∆ H 298 = + 206 kJ / mol Eq 6

Boudoir reaction:
2CO ⇔ C + CO 2 ∆ H 298 = − 173 kJ / mol Eq 7

Water-gas reaction:
CO + H 2O ⇔ CO + H 2 ∆ H 298 = − 41kJ / mol Eq 8

Methane production reaction:

C + 2 H 2 → CH 4 ∆ H 800 = − 87 kJ / kmol Eq 9

By looking at the reactions in the reduction step it can be noticed that heat are required in some of
the reactions, this heat is supplied by the combustion/oxidation reactions (Moulijn et Al, 2002). The
water gas shift reactions and the boudoir reaction are equilibrium reactions that highly depend on
the temperatures. These equilibrium equations determine to a large extent the final gas composition.
Biomass gasification should ultimately be done under dry conditions, since a better quality of the gas
is gained (i.e. higher heating value, higher efficiency and lower tar levels).Therefore drying of
biomass is applied before the gasification (Knoef, 2005). Before the biomass is injected to the reactor
it needs to be processed, it needs to be sized and dried. It is common to dry the biomass to moisture
content about 15% before it enters the reactor (Newenergyalternative, 2011).

The temperature of the system is determined by the amount of injected oxygen relative to the
amount of oxygen needed for stoichiometric combustion. If all oxygen that is required for
combustion is added only combustion occurs and no gasification (Prins, 2005).There is several
different choices of gasification agents that can be used, for example air, pure oxygen and a
combination of pure oxygen and steam. The big advantage with using air is that it is relatively cheap,
but it leads to high amounts of nitrogen in the producer gas which has to be removed after the
process. Oxygen as a gasification agent yields a pure synthetic gas, but the drawback with using
oxygen is that it is energy demanding and cost money to produce pure oxygen. Gasification with pure
oxygen gives high temperatures which is not suitable for a fluidized bed where the bed material
sinter at high temperatures in order to make the temperatures more moderate if not air gasification
is desired is to mix the oxygen with steam. One limitation is that the steam has to have the minimum
temperature corresponding to that of saturated steam at the pressure in the gasifier (Higman &
Burgt, 2008).

It is advantageous to operate the gasification process under elevated pressures for reason
mentioned before. The elevation of the operation pressure affects the production of synthesis gas,
one effect is that the partial pressure of reactive components such as H2O and CO2 becomes higher,
which leads to a higher gasification rate and an increased conversion. Also the oxidation reactions
become faster at higher pressure, because of the increased partial pressure of oxygen this leads to a
higher flame temperature and subsequently increased conversion. The morphology and
conformation of the char is changed at higher pressures. The change in morphology of the tars leads

28
to an increased reactivity of the tars (mostly applicable in fluidized bed gasification) which leads to a
higher conversion (Van der Drift et Al, 2004).
2004) The amount of slag is increasing slightly due to an
increased pressure.

Thermodynamically it becomes harder to increase the amount of gas molecules, due to le Chateliers
principle, which is what happens during gasification of solid fuels,
fuels, this leads to a decreasing in
conversion (Van der Drift et Al, 2004).
2004) Since
nce the reactions occurring during gasification are
equilibrium reactionss the reactions are affected by the change in pressure. The fraction of the
desired components CO and H2 are decreasing when the pressure is elevated if the temperatures are
below 1200 C, but since the entrained flow gasification take place at such a high temperature the
pressure does not affect the synthesis gas composition much (Moulijn et Al, 2002).
2002) For the fluidized
bed where the temperatures are lower this can be a problem when producing synthesis gas however
(Higman & Burgt, 2008).. As noticed above there are both effects that are leading to decreasing of
conversion and increasing of conversion.

6.3.. Fluidized bed gasification

gasificati reactor
One commonly used gasifier is the fluid bed gasifier. The units required for the operation of a
fluidized bed gasifier is shown in Figure 9

Figure 9. The
he component of production of
o synthesis gas through fluidized bed gasification, System 2

In a fluidized bed reactor the biomass is brought into an inerti bed of a fluidized
dized matter
ma (e.g. sand)
with the help of a screw (Siedlecki et Al, 2011)&
2011) (Rosen, 2011). The size of the injected biomass can
vary between 50 to 100 mm; this means that the reactor has high biomasss flexibility when it comes
to size (Lettner et Al, 2007). The newly introduced particles are mixed with the particles already
present in the reactor; therefore the fluidized bed reactor is called back-mixed
back mixed and the process of
drying, pyrolysis, oxidation and reduction takes place in the entire reaction chamber. Since both
reacted and not reacted particles are mixed together a large amount of the not yet fully reacted
particles are following the product gas out,
ou this of course leads to a lower conversion.
conversion The fluidized
bed reactor operates at a uniform moderate
modera temperature (below 1000 C); itt cannot be operated at
higher temperatures due to sintering risks of the fluidized material. The moderate temperature
leads to the formationn of lots of hydrocarbons, such as methane, ethylene, benzene and tars. Some
of these ashes in the product gas is recycled with the help of cyclones, and the dry ashes leaves the
reactor
or at the bottom of the reactor (Siedlecki et Al, 2011).

29
Figure 10. An example of a fluidized-bed
bed gasifier in cross section

The big advantage with a fluidized bed reactor is that it is not sensitive to physical and chemical
variations of the biomass. This means that no severe
severe grinding is needed before the biomass enters
the reactor. The weak points for the fluidized bed reactor are that it produces a lot of dust and tar.
The tars produced inside the fluidized bed are hard to separate and can lead to clogging of the
reactor and in addition they are often corrosive,
corrosive, these tars also often sticks to the gas cleaning
equipment (Liljedal, 2011).The
The fluidized bed can be operated at different pressures, but if a pressure
is to be applied a noticed optimum
mum has said to be around 18-20 20 bar, above this pressures the cost is
to high and the composition of the gas is not advantageous (Rosen, 2011).TheThe fraction of CO and H2
in the synthesis gas is often lower than for synthesis-gas
synthesis produced in an entrained flow reactor.
reactor
(Moulijn et Al, 2002).

6.4 Entrained flow gasification reactor

The units required for entrained flow gasification are visualized in Figure 11. 11 Compared to the
fluidized bed -system more units are required for the entrained-flow
entrained flow gasification,
gasification due to less fuel
flexibility in terms of size. An important thing to notice is that not as severe gas cleaning is needed
after the gasifier as for the fluidized bed gasifier.

Figure 11. The units required for entrained

ntrained-flow gasification, system 1

In the entrained-flow reactor well grinded particles are fed pneumatically to the reactor and react co-co
currently with the gasifying
ng agent,
agent this is well illustrated in Figure 12 . The temperature in the reactor
is high which leads
eads to maximal conversion, the higherr temperatures also lead to low formation of
ashes and tars.. The residence time in the entrained flow reactor
reactor is only a few seconds. (Moulijn et Al,
2002).

30
 Gasification reactors can be operated in slagging or in no
slagging mode; this refers to molten or dry ash production.
If pure oxygen is used the gasifier reactor will operate at
high temperature and at slagging mode. If this is not
desirable, steam can be used to decrease the gasification
temperature and also air instead of pure oxygen (Knoef,
2005). In a slagging reactor it is the meaning that the
molten ashes shall flow along the reactor wall and exit at
the bottom of it. It is important that the molten layer at the
reactor wall is of sufficient thickness otherwise the ashes
injure the wall due to the high temperature closest to the
wall. If the layer is thick the layer placed at the closest to
the flame protects the layer adjacent to the wall from
becoming too hot and destroy the reactor wall. The
composition and thickness of the ashes is controlling the
speed at which they are flowing down the reactor wall.
(Nordwaeger, Phd Umeå University, 2011). If the
gasification is operated in a slagging mode with oxygen as a
Figure 12. An example of an entrained-flow
reactor in cross section. Source: (wordpress,
gasification medium the synthesis gas will have a higher
2006)
calorific value because of the absence of nitrogen (from the
air), it is also more fuel flexible than a non slagging reactor (Knoef, 2005). Such a reactor is
recommended for the treatment of biomass since it is hard to avoid that some of the ashes is melting
and then as mentioned before the wall of the reactor is injured (Knoef, 2005).

In order to inject the fuel in to the pressurized reactor a feeding system is required. The feeding
systems of the pressurized reactors have the special demand to be able to transport material across
pressure boundaries in to reactors with elevated pressure (Knoef, 2005). The process control of the
entrained flow reactor is more complicated than what it is for the fluidized bed since the residence
time is so short and hence it is hard to have sufficient time to control the temperature. The
temperature is mostly controlled by the air to fuel ratio (Ullrich, 2011).

In general entrained flow reactors used for coal gasification requires a coal particles size of 50 to 100
µm. This size of the particles ensures 99% conversion. However torrefied wood is more reactive than
coal and therefore the biomass particles don’t have to be as small as the coal particles, in a
conversion point of view (Van der Drift et Al, 2004).In a compilation of required particle size for
sufficient conversion in commercial processes made by Van der Drift et Al (2004) it can be seen that a
particle size of 1 mm gives a conversions between 92 to 98 % at a temperature interval of 1300˚C to
1500˚C and in sufficient time for gasification of coal. According to this report a particle size of 1mm is
sufficient to gain a good conversion (Van der Drift et Al, 2004).

Not only the conversion can be seen to when choosing a particle size, also the feeding system
demands a certain particle size to work. If the conventional coal based feeding systems is going to be
used the maximum size of the particles have to be around 300µm due to that proper fluidization
behavior shall be possible (Van der Drift et Al, 2004).

31
6.5 Feeding systems for pressurized entrained flow reactor
The feeding system is a device that transports the fuel from its long-term storage into the unit in
which the gasification takes place. It forms an important process control mechanism since it controls
the fuel amount injected to the reactor. (Knoef, 2005) In an entrained flow reactor it is the ratio
between the fuel and oxygen that mainly controls the process and therefore the control of it is of
extra importance (Ullrich, 2011).

There are a few options when it comes to the feeding systems in to an entrained-flow gasifier. It
would be an advantage if the same feeding technology as for coal gasifier could be used, since
already existing reactors then can be used without rebuilding; however there are differences
between torrefied wood and coal that can cause problems. The conventional way of conveying coal
in to entrained flow gasifiers is presented below:

1. A lock hopper pressurizes the fuel with inert gas that is compressed
2. The pressurized fuel is transported in a small fluidized bed, which fluidize with the help of
inert gases, this is called pneumatic feeding.
3. At the end of the fluidized bed a pipe is situated that conveys the fuel in to the gasifier, the
particles are moving due to that a pressure drop is applied over the pipe. (Van der Drift et Al,
2004)

Lock hoppers are often used to inject the solid fuel into pressurized reactors. This is a batch-wise
system, where a vessel is filled with fuel, then pressurized and after that emptied in a second high
pressure vessel. From the second vessel (feed bin) the fuel is then transported to the reactor by
pneumatic transport. .The conventional feeding system described above demands torrefied biomass,
since it enables the wood to fluidize. Non torrefied wood does not fluidize because the fibrous
structure of the wood makes it stick together which leads to bad fluidizing behavior, also a small
particle size is important when using pneumatic feeding. (Boerrigter et Al, 2004) The reason for using
pneumatic feeding is that it supply and create constant dose and dense flow of fuel to the gasifier so
that the feeding are stable and easy to control. (Boerrigter et Al, 2004)

Torrefied biomass has a lower density compared to coal as seen in Table 10; this means that a larger
volume of fuel is needed for gasification. Often it is not sufficient to increase the volume flow,
instead an increase of the size on the feeding system is required and this is costly. (Kitzler et Al, 2010)
The lower density of the fuel also leads to higher inert gas consumption in the feeding system. The
increased amount of inert gas is not preferable due to that the produced gas become diluted with
the inert gas. In an investigation made by ECN the inert gas consumption for some different feeding
system was measured and given in Table 13.

The more newly innovated, piston feeder is also a feeding system that can be used as a feeding
system for entrained-flow gasification, not to mix up with the screw feeder that are used for fluidized
bed gasification. According to Cummer & Brown (2002) piston feeders as fuel injector can operate in
gasification system pressurized up to 45 to 150 bars. In this system metric screws feed biomass in to
a long narrow channel where a piston compresses the biomass into a solid fuel plug which is pushed
into the gasifier (Cummer & brown, 2002). Advantages with the piston feeding are the lower volume
and lower inert gas consumption.

32
According to Cummer & Brown (2002) lock hoppers work best for system operating at less than 35
bars. The reason is that above this pressure an excessive amount of inert gas need to be used to
stand against the back pressure, the high amount of inert gases leads to production of a low quality
syngas (it is more diluted with inert gases that needs to be removed in steps after the gasification).
The amount of inert gas used in a lock hopper strongly depends on the density of the fuel. Electricity
is consumed during the compression of the fuels; this is not good in an energy saving perspective.

Table 13. Inert gas consumption for different feeding system at 40 bars. (Van der Drift et Al, 2004)

Torrefied wood Coal

3
Lock hopper 11 m / ton fuel 3.7 m3/ ton fuel
Piston feeding 6.4 m3/ ton fuel
The inert gas used for feeding systems to gasification can be various, but when producing synthetic
gas with the purpose of further synthesis of second generation fuels the most common gas used is
CO2, since it is already a component of the gas so that no additional cleaning step of the synthesis gas
is needed, it also prevents soot composition to some extent

6.5 The Gas treatment system

The producer gas needs to be treated to become synthesis gas suitable for FT-synthesis. The gas
treatment comprises adjustment of the H2/CO -ratio by water-gas-shift reactions, purification of the
syngas, CO2 removal and a final purification step as a safety net before the FT-synthesis, since the
catalyst in the FT-synthesis is very sensitive to impurities. Examples of impurities that have to be
removed from the producer gas are nitrogen, halogens, sulfur, particles and tars. Tares consist of
polycyclic aromatic components with a high boiling point (Calis et Al, 2003). Tares need to be
removed because it condenses on moving part such as turbines and can create blockage and also
cause breakage of the turbine. The tars also deactivate the catalyst used for the production of FT-
fuels by forming a coke layer on the catalyst surface (Schmidt et Al, 2011).

A more severe gas cleaning system is needed for the fluidized bed since much tars is formed, In an
entrained flow gasifier almost no tars is produced, so no special tar cleaning is needed . For a
fluidized bed gasifier a high temperature tar cracker is needed downstream to convert all the
hydrocarbons (the tares) into H2 and CO and also often a more severe particle separator, such as a
cyclone, the more complicated cleaning system leads to a high pressure drops (Calis et Al, 2003).
Before the removal of the tars it is important to keep the producers gas at a temperature above the
condensation temperature of the tares otherwise the cleaning system situated before the catalytic
reformer unit will be fouled with sticky tars and in the worst case scenario destroyed. Consequently
this system demands extra energy (Hamerlinck et Al, 2004).

33
7. Pelletisation of torrefied
torre biomass
Biomass in the form of pellets has many attractive properties compared to not pelletized biomass.
The pellets have advantages with respect to heating value, grindability, combustion-nature,
combustion storage,
transport and handling. This make
ma it is convenient to convert biomass to pellets it has been done
with raw biomass and it is possible for torrefied biomass as well (Bergman et Al, 2005b).
2005b) Developers
of the torrefied
fied biomass pellets technology are the companies
companies Econcern and ECN that have gone
together to form torrefied pellets and labeled their pellets as BO2 pellets. The Dutch company Topell-
Energy also aims to produce torrefied
torre wood pellets (pellet@tlas, 2008) and the Swedish BioEndev
Bio
operates a pilot plant that produces torrefied pellets.

The conventional technology for producing pellets from raw wood is described in the flow scheme
below in Figure 13 . When
hen producing torrefied
torre pellets and additional torrefaction
refaction step is included in
between the drying and the size reduction.

Figure 13. The units required for

or production of conventional pellets

Wood
ood becomes brittle after torrefaction which leads to better grindability and that less energy is
consumed during the size reduction.
reduction Not
ot desired properties such as increasing of dust formation and
lower mechanical strength also appears after torrefaction.
torrefaction. If the material is formed to pellets after
torrefaction the mechanical strength and the
the tendency to form dust for the material is decreasing,
decr
which one reason to why pelting could work well in connection with torrefaction (Bergman et Al,
2005b). Another reason is that he pressure needed to compress the biomass can be reduced with a
factor of two with the same achieved pellet quality if torrefied
torrefied material is used instead of raw
biomass. Also the energy consumption can be divided by a factor of 2 (Bergman et Al, 2005b).
2005b)

Other advantagess with the production of torrefied pellets are the significant increasing of the density
and energy densityy of the created pellets. The
T efficiency in creating torrefied
fied pellets are 92-96
92 %
which is a higher then if conventional pellets are formed in which torrefaction is not included ( Kiel et
Al, 2008).

he best product quality of torrefied

According to ECN the torrefied pellets is gained when the torrefaction is done
at 240 ˚C to 280˚CC and with a residence time in the range of 15-30
15 minutes (Bergman et Al, 2005b).
2005b)
High
igh temperatures in combination with long torrefaction times give very water resistance pellets but
they are hard to make to stick together. Lower temperatures and short time torrefaction reduces the
water resistance and the grindability, but the pellet is easier to produce and the pellets is stronger.
(Verhoeff et Al, 2011).

The CO2 emissions and the energy consumption for the production chain were investigated for the
following products: conventional pellets, pellets of torrefied biomass, wood forest residue and straw.
The parts in the production chain that created CO2 emission and consume power were collection and
supply, transports,
ransports, transformation and conditioning.
conditionin The result showed that the conventional
c pellets
had the highest energy consumption and CO2 emission and the torrefied fied pellets the lowest. The

34
reason for the high values of the conventional pellets is the high amount of energy required for
drying, milling and pelletisation (Romeo & Barno, 2008).

35
8. Implementation
Under this headline a description of how the aim of the project was reached by using the methods
described under headline 2 Methods.

The information gained from the literature review was used a base for the set up of material- and
energy balances. Knowledge of which process that was favorable to use and how they best would be
designed was understood from the literature study and the case studies. Some of the data used in
the material- and energy was collected through literature review and some were collected through
the case study. Also the case studies gave ideas of how to best set up the calculations were made on.
An understanding of how far the technologies have come and what the developers believe in was
gained. Obstacles with the investigated technology were identified through interviews and the
literature study.

Two material- and energy balances were preformed, one over torrefaction together with entrained-
flow gasification (called System 1) and one over fluidized bed gasification of raw biomass, (called
System 2). It was assumed that the investigated processes took place on a large scale since the
market of transportation fuels are huge, also large- scale generally means lower costs (Van der Drift
et Al, 2004). The pressure on gasification System 1 was set to 40 bars since this would be high
enough to prevent insertion of a compression step for further conversion of the syngas to FT-fuels
(Ullrich, 2011). The pressure on System 2 was taken to 20 bars, since it is hard to feed the system at
higher pressures. The two material and energy-balances were designed so that 300 MW of biomass
was fed to each gasifier. The process design and the data used in System 2 was gained entirely from
(Ekbom et Al, 2000), the system was scaled to proper size by multiplication with the scaling factor
1.31.

For System 1 data and set up for all the included units was needed to be collected. For guidelines
concerning the drying the company Torkapparater and Lennart Alsen (2011) was consulted. A rotary
drum flue gas dryer were the chosen drying technology, this enabled the energy from the gases
formed from torrefaction to be used to supply heat. It was assumed that the torrefaction gases could
be combusted to produce heat of 1000˚ C which is required for this drying equipment Alsen (2011). If
at any situation the torrefaction gases would be non combustible, natural gas can be added so that
the energy content in the gas can be utilized anyway. The drying was assumed to take place from
moisture content of 50% to 3%, since 50% is common moisture content of trees coming directly from
the forest. Drying to 3% moisture was chosen since it is feasible. The data gained from Bioendev
were torrefied at 0 ˚C, but since it is not feasible to dry the wood that far a close number (3%) was
chosen instead. According to (Alsen, 2011) a total energy of 60 MW was required to dry the biomass
and a 1000 ˚C steam was generated, this means that through heat exchange some of the formed
heat from the drying can be used for district heating. When calculating how much effect that could
be used for district heating, it was assumed that a pressure of 16 bars was needed and a temperature
of 120 ˚C. The heat exchanger was assumed to have an efficiency of 85% which is common for
counter current heat-exchangers. Equation 11 was used for calculations of the power output from
the heat exchanger. Where T2 was set to 474 K since this is the saturation temperature for steam at
16 bars.

.
Power output = m* Cp * (T 1 − T 2) *η Eq 11

36
An autothermal configuration was chosen for the torrefaction, i.e. the produced flue gases from the
torrefaction were combusted and re-circulated to ensure a higher heat efficiency of the system. This
technology was recommended by Bioendev. The experimental data used for the torrefaction was
collected from the company BioEndev who conducted torrefaction experiments at a temperature of
310˚C and residence time of 8 minutes. The equipment in which the experiment took place is closely
described under headline 9.10.1 The pilot plant. The higher torrefaction temperature of 310˚ C was
preferred to ensure that all fibrous structure of the material was eliminated and to certify that the
formed torrefaction gases could be combusted. The chosen wood specie was spruce, since this is
common in Swedish forests.

There were no data available on the composition of the gases formed during torrefaction; therefore
these were estimated from data produces by (Mark J Prins et Al, 2006b), the gas composition for
Larch was chosen, since it is a coniferous tree as Spruce. The gas composition data used can be seen
in Figure 6 and Figure 5 in this report. Since the residence time and the temperature of the
investigated torrefaction were higher in the investigated case than in the case of (Prins et Al,
2005)the values were extrapolated to suit the chosen situation. All the experimental data gained
from Bioendev was scaled up to the size of 300 MW output fuel from the torrefaction. No Scaling
factor was used since energy and mass yields was already calculated by BioEndev. For experimental
data see Appendix1.

The electrical energy required for grinding was taken from an article presented by (Govin et Al,
2009); the data can be visualized in Figure 7 and Figure 8. The electrical energy requirement was
calculated with the assumption that the torrefied wood should be ground to a particle size of 0.3
mm, since this is what is required for the injection of the biomass to the gasifier if a commercial
feeding system is used according to literature. The energy that needs to be removed from the cooling
was calculated with the help of the specific heat capacity for wet torrefied wood presented in the
article by (Coronella et Al, 2010) as 6.3 KJ/Kg K. It was assumed that the torrefied biomass was
cooled from 310 ˚C to 100˚ C since after 100 ˚C it is certain that the pyrolysis has stopped. Equation
12 was used to calculate the enthalpy of the torrefied wood. The enthalpy was the multiplied with
the flow of torrefied wood so that the energy content was gained. Equation 12 was also used to
calculate the sensitive energy that the wood gained after drying and torrefaction. The heat capacity
of wood and torrefied wood was estimated to be the same.

H = Cp ∆T Eq 12

The amount of inert gas that was needed for the feeding system was taken from a report by ECN
(Bergman et Al, 200?). The used numbers can be seen in Table 13, where the conventional lock
hopper method was used. The electricity needed for comprising of the inert gas to 40 bars was
gained from this report and said to be 0.02kWel/kW thermal energy input.

Attempt to collect data concerning the entrained-flow gasification of torrefied wood from developer
was made, but appeared to be impossible, therefore strategic estimations were used instead. The
estimations were done by looking at several articles and compare the different situation.

The oxygen/biomass ratio was first calculated by looking at numbers presented by (Prins et Al, 2005),
it was compared to other experimental values that were described in other articles and decided to be

37
taken as 0.4. No steam was going to be used in the process since in the two articles that treated
entrained-flow biomass gasification steam was not used. (Couhert et Al, 2009), (Zhou et Al, 2009)

The gas composition of the produced syngas was taken from an article written by (Zhou et Al, 2009)
which treat the subject of biomass gasification. The gas-composition was modified to better suit the
syngas composition gained by gasification of torrefied biomass, this was done according to an article
written by (Couhert et Al, 2009), were it could be seen that the weight of the formed carbon
monoxide was increasing with approximately 20 wt% and the weight of the formed hydrogen was
increasing with approximately 7% if the gasification took place with torrefied wood instead of raw
wood. Therefore a 20 and 7 % increase was put o on the composition presented by (Zhou et Al,
2009). Se Appendix 3.

The entrained-flow gasification takes place at 40 bars, an assumption is made that no difference in
gas composition occurs because of the higher pressure, this can only be assumed since the
gasification takes place at such a high temperature and because the amount of CH4 which is the
product that changes the most with pressure is almost negligible. However some small change
probably occurs in the real case.

The torrefied biomass flow in to the gasification-system was known, since this was the output of the
torrefaction unit calculated before. From this the amount of oxygen could be calculated since the
oxygen/biomass ratio that was known. The addition of the mass of torrefied wood and the mass of
oxygen entering the system gave the total mass entering the system (except for the inert gas from
the feeding). The mass going in to the system is equal to the one going out; therefore the mass flow
of syngas out from the system could be calculated. A conversion of 97% biomass was assumed, this
number is lower than reported in most gasification system to be on the safe side. The energy content
of the syngas was calculated from the heat of combustion and heat capacities gained from
Elementary principle of chemical processes (Felder & Rosseau, 1999). From this the cold gas
efficiency could be calculated and compared to similar calculations. It was noticed that it was
consistent with other data found on the cold gas efficiencies in entrained flow gasification in the
articles. The formula used for the cold gas efficiency was found in the report written by Letter et Al
(2007) and is presented below in Eq 13.

LHVsyngas
ηcg = Eq13
LHV fuel ⋅

The energy for producing oxygen through a cryogenic process was estimated from (Prins et Al, 2005)
and (Ekbom et Al, 2000) an average value of the two was used.

The gasification was assumed to take place at 1200˚ C since a lower temperature can be used for
torrefied wood than coal because of its higher reactivity. The gasification temperature of 1200 ˚C was
also used in the two articles written by (Couhert et Al, 2009) and (Zhou et Al, 2009). The energy value
of the gas could be calculated with the help of the heat of combustion for the different species.
Some of the energy released from cooling of the syngas was assumed to be used as district heat. The
amount of district heat that could be taken out was calculated the same way as the production of
district heat from steam formed from the drying.

38
 9. Torrefaction developers
The torrefaction techniques today have just started to develop commercially. Around 20 -30
companies in Europe and USA are now developing the technology. The Netherlands is outstanding as
a leading country when it comes to development of torrefaction, but so far no commercial scale
torrefaction plant is in full operation. In this chapter the developers and their project are shortly
described, 2 companies and their project are described in more detail at the end of the chapter. A
summary of the developers and the technologies and capacities that are planned to be used are
given in

Developer Technology Supplier Capacity [MW] Time of operation Uses

Topell energy (NL) Toroidal fluidized Torftech Inc (UK) 43.7 100 h Co-firing
bed

Stramproy Oscillating belt Stramproy green 65 1500 h Co-firing

green(NL) conveyor

Torr-Coal (NL) Rotary drum Torr-coal 9.5-13 Co-firing/ gasification

BioEndev (Sw) Rotary drum 0.2 (23-19) gasification

Global bio coal n/a 131 100 tests

Energy Inc

ECN (NL) Moving bed ECN Engineering 0.25-0.5 gasification

and service

River Basin Energy Fluidized bed (72.93) a lot Co-firing

Integro Earth Fuels Turbo dryer Wyssmont 9.58 1080

The BioTfuel Thinking about Not yet decided (15 then 0 gasification
project turbo dryer
800)

Table 14. The capacities are given with the assumption that the plants can produce a product with 23
MJ/kg. This table only includes the companies investigated by me. For a more detailed table see
Appendix 4.

Developer Technology Supplier Capacity [MW] Time of operation Uses

Topell energy (NL) Toroidal fluidized Torftech Inc (UK) 43.7 100 h Co-firing
bed

Stramproy Oscillating belt Stramproy green 65 1500 h Co-firing

green(NL) conveyor

Torr-Coal (NL) Rotary drum Torr-coal 9.5-13 Co-firing/ gasification

BioEndev (Sw) Rotary drum 0.2 (23-19) gasification

Global bio coal n/a 131 100 tests

Energy Inc

39
ECN (NL) Moving bed ECN Engineering 0.25-0.5 gasification
and service

River Basin Energy Fluidized bed (72.93) a lot Co-firing

Integro Earth Fuels Turbo dryer Wyssmont 9.58 1080

The BioTfuel Thinking about Not yet decided (15 then 0 gasification
project turbo dryer
800)

Table 14. Summary of the describes torrefaction developers below

9.1 Topell Energy

Topell Energy is a company from the Netherlands that has designed a torrefaction process where a
torbed reactor is used. The reactor is supplied by Torftech Inc. Topell Energy owns the exclusive
rights to use the torbed reactor for torrefaction. Topell Energy uses a multistage process (i.e. series
of torbed reactors) and after the torrefaction process the biomass is cooled and compacted. Topells
Energy’s process has been tried with a test reactor that has been operated since February 2009. The
test facility is currently based in Essen (Germany) (Topell Energy, 2009).

Topell has started up their commercial process located at Duiven with a capacity of 60 000 ton/year
(43.7 MW) that has been verified per mail. After the torrefaction the torrefied material is pressed to
pellets. The torrefied pellets are used as a raw material in co –firing processes, but according to
Nemeth .A (2011) they have the quality suitable for gasification as well. Today the plant is running on
planned starts and shuts. The maximum time that the plant has been running is 100 hours. The plant
is producing torrefied wood with the quality that was planned for (Nemeth, 2011).

9.2 Stramproy Green

Stramproy Green is a company from the Netherlands that started to run their torrefaction process in
Q1 2011. Stramproy green uses an Oscillating belt conveyor and right now the process is operated
with a capacity of 45.000 ton/year (32.5 MW), next year the intension is that a second line shall be in
operation. The second line will also have the capacity of 45. 000 ton/ year so in total the plant will
have a capacity of 90 000 ton/ year (65 MW) (Galema, 2011) Stramproy green have developed a pilot
plant for their torrefaction that have been operated since 2004. Today the process has been
producing torrefied material with an energy content of 22 GJ/ton. Stramproy green has chosen to
create briquettes out of the torrefied biomass according to them it is more cost effective, the
briquettes are later used for co-firing. The commercial process that is located in Stenwiijk has been
operated for 400 hours, and the test plant has been operated for 1.500 hours (Galema, 2011).

9.3 Torr Coal

Torr coal is a company from the Netherlands that produces Biocoal and torrefied material. Torr-coal
uses an indirect heated reactor for its production of torrefied biomass. Today the reactor is running
on its half planned capacity which is 1.5-2.0 ton/hour (9.5-13 MW); the reason for this is the lack of
wood chips drying capacity. When the drying capacity is improved it is planned that the process shall
be able to produce 3-4 ton/hour of torrefied product. The first delivery to customer took place in
January 2011 and from that time the torrefied wood has been produced and delivered on regular
basis. At this time Torr coal has been delivering 1500 tons of torrefied products to two different

40
customers. The torrefied material is planned to be used both for gasification and for Co-firing. The
products are delivered in the form of a powder with a particle size at an average of 100 micron. But
trials are made to deliver pellets in the future. The capacity of Torr Coals process at the moment is
given in Table 15 (Sluijsman, 2001).

IN OUT
Feed rate 5 ton/hour Feed rate 1.8 ton/hour
Water content 43% Water content 1%
Gross caloric value 22 GJ/ton Gross caloric value 27 GJ/ton
(DAF) (DAF)
Table 15 the capacity of Torr-coal process.

9.4 Global Bio-Coal Energy Inc.

Global Bio-Coal Energy Inc is a Canadian company that plans to build torrefaction plants in both
North America and Europe. They plan to start a process of torrefaction that will start in the summer
of 2012. The plan is that this process will produce 180 000 T/hr (131 MW). From the torrefied
biomass briquettes will be formed that will be used for Co-firing. So far only around 100 tests on the
torrefaction plants have been made (Shourkry, 2011).

9.5 Energy research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN)

ECN is an independent research institute for renewable energy that performs leading research in
among others torrefaction technologies. ECN has developed an own torrefaction pilot plant that is
called PATRIG. PATRIG is a moving bed reactor.

The pilot plant is heated directly with the help of the produced gases from the torrefaction plant that
is heated in a heat exchanger and recycled with the help of blowers. The redundant gas is combusted
and recycled back to the reactor (auto thermal technology) No drying is included in the pilot plant, if
that is needed it will be done externally. The scale of the plant is that it can take 50-100 kg/h (0.25-
0.5 MW) (Verhoeff, 2011). The torrefied material is exiting the reactor with the help of screw
conveyors and it’s led to storage vessels where it also cools down.

According to Robin Zwart (2011) the particle size in the reactor is mainly limited to that a uniform
torrefaction shall be possible through the whole pellet and not due to pressure drop. The maximum
particle size for the ECN reactor shall not be bigger than 40×40×15 mm. writes Robin Zwart (2011)
through mail (Zwart, 2011).

9.6 River Basin Energy

River basin energy is a Swiss company that uses a continuous fluidized bed reactor for torrefaction.
The process is operated at atmospheric pressure and at a temperature of 300 ˚C. It is operated in an
autothermal way and the capacity of it is planned to be 100 000 ton/ year (72.93 MW), but at the
moment the process is not run at that capacity. River Basin Energy wants to start production of Bio-
coal in both North America and Europe (River Basin Energy, 2011).

In the fluidized bed technology that River Basin energy has developed normal sized wood chips can
be used. After the torrefaction pellets are created out of the torrefied wood. The pellets will be used
for co-firing. According to Jan Perdijk (2011) their process has been running a lot (Perdijk, 2011).

41
9.7 Integro Earth Fuels
Integro earth fuel is an American company is located in Roxbro at North Carolina that aims to
produce torrefied coal. At the moment Integro earth fuels do not have any operating torrefier, but
they are raising money to build a 1 to 1.5 metric ton system. Integro earth fuels have been running a
pilot plant for 14 months a hearth dryer with a rotating 18 tray system was used. A 2.5 intake to
output ratio was achieved and the system was 100% auto-thermal with enough energy to produce
heat for pre drying. The meaning is that the full scale operation plant shall produce enough energy
that it is enough to produce electricity for the operation of the equipment and also selling to the grid.
According to James Walker (2011) Facilities Development Manager at Integro earth fuels integro
earth fuels have sent their product for testing by external companies and they got a better result
than the average torrefied wood and their expectations were exceeded (Walker, 2011).

Integro earth fuels have tried to make pellets out of their torrefied wood, but they noticed that the
equipments up running time were very low and cost of maintenance was outrageous. So Briquetting
was also explored with the result that Integro earth fuel feels that this densification technology is
better at the present (Walker, 2011).

9.9 ThyssenKrupp Uhde

ThyssenKrupp Uhde is a Deutsch company that constructs and designs chemical, refining and other
industrial plants. Uhde is involved in a big consortium that plan to build a biomass to liquid fuel chain.
The project is called the BioTfuel project and is described below.

9.91 The BioTfuel project

The BioTfuel project is a consortium between the Dutch company Udhe and Five French companies
that aims to build a biomass to liquid fuel chain in pilot plant scale by the end of 2012. The biomass
to liquid chain is of a special art since Co-gasification with fossil fuel in the chain shall be possible if
needed. The capacity of the pilot sized biogas to liquid chain is planned to be around 15MW which
corresponds to 3 T/hr. After the development of the torrefaction pilot plant, it is the meaning that a
biomass to liquid chain of commercial size shall be built (800MWh Thermal) (Ullrich, 2011) . The total
budget for the BioTfuel project is 112.7 Million euro. (Ullrich & Jensen, 2010).The commercial plant is
planned to be ready by 2016. The demonstration plant of torrefaction shall be located at Sofiproreols
site in Compiegne and the gasification demonstration plans shall be located at the total refining site
in France (Ullrich & Jensen, 2010).

Uhde is the company that will provide the gasification technique in the consortium. The technology
that will be used is the commercial Prentflo gasification process with a direct quench. What
torrefaction technology and provider that will be used is not yet clear. Today the decision leans
against the use of a multiple hearth furnace, mainly because the multiple hearth furnace reactors are
easy to scale up (Ullrich, 2011).

The gasification process

The gasification process that will be used is called PRENTFLO it is a kind of entrained flow gasification
process with a direct quench. The name PRENTFLO stands for Pressurized Entrained FLOw and the
technology is a development of the Koppers-Totzek process (Ullrich & Jensen, 2010). It has been
estimated by Uhde that the pressure needed to produce Fisher-Tropsch fuel are 24 bars and in the
gas cleaning there is a large loss of pressure (around 6-10 bars) therefore a total of 30 bars or even

42
higher is needed in the gasification unit if it shall be possible to skip a compression step according to
Uhde (Ullrich, 2011).

The particles fed to the PRENTFLO process is of the range of 0.1 mm and the residence time is
approximately 5 seconds. The gasification agent that will be used is only oxygen and the reactor is a
slagging reactor since a temperature of 1500-1600 C is used and at these temperatures the ash is
melting (Ullrich, 2011).

The torrefaction process.

As was mention before the technology for torrefaction is not yet decided, but some decisions are
taken. An autothermal process is going to be used, the meaning is that it should be possible to add
natural gas to the gas formed in the torrefaction process in case of that the torrefaction gases are too
hard to ignite, this is to make sure that the process can be operated in an autothermal way. The heat
produced from the torrefaction is going to be used to provide heat to the drying of the biomass.

In the dryer the raw wood is dried to a moisture content of 10%. The torrefied wood is cooled after
torrefaction with the help of a cooled screw conveyor and after that indirect cooled with water
(Ullrich, 2011). The cooling is important to stop the pyrolysis to prevent the formation of char coal
instead of torrefied wood.

9.10 BioEndev AB
Swedish BioEndev AB or (Bio Energy Development North AB) is long time collaboration between
Umeå energy, Övik energy and Energy Technology and Technical Process Chemistry (ETPC) at Umeå
University. BioEndev constructed in 2009 a torrefaction pilot-plant with an adjacent pellet factory
located in Umeå. 1 MSEK has newly been allocated to BioEndev for the building of a new reactor that
will be placed after the already existing torrefaction drum that will be used as a dryer before the
torrefaction. The new reactor will be a rotary drum reactor with a screw without a shaft or a screw
reactor (Olofsson, 2011). Further development is planned by the newly formed company Tora AB
that is owned by Umeå energy, Övik energy BioEndev and Industrial actors. They plan to use the
technology for the pilot plant made by BioEndev to build an Industrial development unit in Övik. The
Industrial development unit is planned to have a capacity to take in 24 MW (4.9 T/h) and take out 23-
19 MW. The operation will be running at a temperature of 200˚C to 300 ˚C and the residence time to
be around 25 to 10 min, this project is worth 100MSEK (Olofsson, 2011). Bioendev plan to let
customer plan and design how they want their torrefaction product to look.

9.10.1 The pilot plant

Today BioEndev have a pilot plant running with a capacity of 30 kg/h. In Figure 14 the buildup of the
plant can be seen. Below the figure a description of the pilot plant is made where all the facts are
gained from the study visit at BioEndev and also from interviews with Olofsson, 2009 and the report
(Nordwaeger, 200?).

43
Figure 14 the pilot scale torrefaction unit of Bioendev

150 kg pre-dried biomass is fed into the top silo and equipped with an airtight lid, Nitrogen is injected
and the air is allowed to go out, this is the way an oxygen free environment is maintained. The
biomass is then going through two screw feeder and one rotary vane feeder, the rotary vane feeder
have the capacity to be air tight they ensure that no oxygen goes in to the process and no poisonous
gases go out from the torrefaction plant. The last screw feeder that feed the biomass to the storage
is water-cooled. (Nordwaeger, 200?)

The torrefaction drum is 2 m long and has radius of 0.27 m. The rotation of the reactor and the
inclination of it make the biomass go through the drum and ensure a steady and controlled feeding
rate. The inclination can be changed from 0 to 8˚ and the rotation of it can go from 5 to 50 rpm. The
adjustment of these two parameters determines the residence time of the biomass in the rotary
drum. Inside the reactor there is an Screw without a shaft, there are also three steel rails that run
along the reactor, these make the biomass to mix and turn inside the reactor. The rails are important
for mixing and heat transfer. In the absence of these rails all biomass would lie in the bottom of the
drum and the heat transfer to the biomass would be reduced. Three Electric heaters are enclosing
the torrefaction drum and are placed in series along the reactor. This placement makes it possible to
have different temperatures zones in the reactor (Nordwaeger, 200?). Five thermo couples are
placed along the reactor that measures the temperature along the reactor; from these five it is
possible to get a temperature profile along the reactor. The reactor can also be cooled. The sizes of
the wood chips are approximately 25×25 mm and 2 cm thick. The only problem that Ingemar
Olofsson can see with the use of the rotary drum as a torrefaction unit is that before the heat
transfer has been a problem, but according to Ingemar Olofsson this problem has been solved and
will presented in a soon feature (Olofsson, 2011).

The Electric heaters are easy to control which is very important for the pilot plant since a lot of tests
is done on the plant. However for a commercial plant it is not recommended, since heating with
electricity is too expensive. There are three electric heaters in the torrefaction drum a 10 kW and for
the VOC burner there are one a 3.8 KW even in the pipes that delver the gas to the VOC burner there
are two heaters a 1 KW they are placed there to make sure that the volatile fraction doesn’t
condense and form tars. The temperature in the system is measured by 24 thermocouples.
Thermocouples are cheap and have a sufficient accuracy. This makes the temperature control of the
reactor simple (Nordwaeger, 200?).

44
The gases that are formed in the reaction drum are led through two outlets from the reactor to a
VOC-burner where they are combusted and led out. Since there can be no oxygen in the torrefaction
plant, lambda sensors are measuring the amount of oxygen in the plant at three different locations:
At the silo, at the end of the rotating drum and at the last rotary vane feeder. A lambda probe is also
placed after the VOC-burner it measures the oxygen there to see that the combustion is complete
(Olofsson, 2011).

Three mass controllers and meters measures different gas and liquid flows. Two controls and
measure the nitrogen going in to the silo and going out at the last rotary vane feeder. And one
measured and controls the water feed to the stream super heater (Nordwaeger, 200?).

45
10. The potential and obstacles for torrefaction and entrained-flow
gasification according to experts.
In this chapter the answers from the Interviews are consolidated into a text.

The two reliable alternatives for producing synthetic fuels out of biomass are according to experts:

• The entrained flow gasification with torrefaction as a pre-treatment

• The fluidized bed gasification in connection with the full reformer. For the later system the
main obstacle is to get the full reformer to work efficiently.

A common opinion among researchers and experts is that torrefaction will be used in the future
production of second generation fuels. Most experts think that torrefaction together with entrained
flow gasification will be used in the future for the production of liquid fuels, but not as the only
technology, many technologies are needed to replace the fossil fuels. The easiest way of producing
liquid fuels is through the entrained flow gasification due to the much cleaner product according to
many of the experts. A given reason to why torrefaction will not be used in the future as a
pretreatment to gasification was that the reactivity of the fuel is becoming less, due to the
torrefaction, which is not advantageous in a gasification process.

Given reasons to why torrefaction together with entrained flow gasification is not a commercial
process today was that it is still exists large problem to inject the biomass into the reactor in an
entrained-flow reactor even though torrefaction is used as a pre-treatment method. The torrefaction
process is still quite new and it has to be further tried out before working efficiently and can be
scaled up and used commercially. For example there are many parameters that have to be tried out
to suit al specific feeds, dust and smell has also to be considered. Another reason is that the biomass
used for torrefaction and entrained flow reactors are expensive compare to for example coal at this
point, this can come to change if the taxes on coal for the production of liquid fuels would increase.
One other problem is that the drying of the biomass consumes a lot of energy, which reduces the
efficiency and increases the cost of the process. An identified problem is that the drying takes a lot of
space and consumes a lot of energy and in big operations the drying may limit the size and hence not
the torrefaction unit itself.

It is believed that torrefaction and entrained flow reactors only are feasible in large scale. The
problem today is then that the torrefaction has not yet succeeded to be scaled up. And at the small
scale that is more tried a very few entrepreneurs want to invest money since it is of large risk.

The biomass flexibility can be a problem when developing the torrefaction plant since all sorts of
biomass needs a certain setting of temperature and residence time and so on to reach the optimal
torrefaction grade. On the other hand, torrefaction is a process which will be close to the biomass
source since the process makes subsequent transport cheaper, this means that probably just one sort
of biomass will be used in each plant.

Another problem mentioned with the torrefaction in combination with entrained-flow gasification is
the problem with the ash composition; it is hard to control the ash composition so that an even flow
of slag can flow down the gasification reactor, since the ash content and composition varies from
biomass to biomass.

46
Few of the experts had an opinion on which reactor that is the optimum. However it was said that
what is of special important for the reactor is a good temperature control. Two reactors that were
mentioned as good alternatives for the torrefaction process is: The rotary drum reactor with a non
auxiliary screw (with a special feature that makes the heat transfer more efficient) and multiple
hearth furnace. Some of the suitable technologies are also secrets, since they are so new.

47
11. Material and energy balances
The result from the energy and material balances is visualized with the help of energy flow schemes
and stream tables related to it by numbers; in the stream tables the material flows are shown.

11.1 System 1. Torrefaction in combination with entrained flow gasification

11.1.1 Process description
System 1 consists of two parallel rotary drum flue dryers, where the flue gas from the torrefaction is
partly used to supply heat. A part of the heat formed during the drying can be utilized for district
heating id going through heat exchanging. The torrefaction unit is a rotary drum unit with an auxiliary
screw. For a closed description of the reactor see headline 9.10.1. The torrefaction reactor is
equipped with a cooling system. After the torrefaction a cooling unit is placed where the torrefied
biomass is cooled indirectly with water to down to 100˚C. In the grinder the torrefied biomass is
grinded to a particle size of 0.3 mm; the grinder is operated on electrical energy. The torrefied
biomass is then fed through a conventional feeding system in to the entrained flow reactor. The
feeding system uses CO2 as inert gas and uses electrical energy to compress the fuel. The entrained
flow reactor is operated at 40 bars and 1200˚ C, it has a quench where ashes are removed and the
gas cooled, the heat formed during the gasification is used for steam production. For oxygen
generation a cryogenic process is used where the oxygen is provided in liquid form. Before injection
to the gasifier the oxygen needs to be expanded and heated, the oxygen is heated to 400 ˚C.

11.1.2 Material-and energy balances

In Figure 15 the energy-flow-scheme of System 1 can be seen and in Table 16 -

48
Table 19 the stream tables are visualized. From Figure 15 it can be seen that the largest energy input
is required for the drying, 60 MW in total, however some of the heat can be recovered in the form of
district heating 16 MW and also some energy from the formed gases can be used in the drying
therefore a net- value of 21 MW heat only need to be supplied to the drying process. After the drying
the torrefaction is located and this is the process that requires the second most energy of 14 MW
and a very small amount of energy could be recovered from this. During the cooling the torrefied
wood is cooled from 310 ˚C down to 100 ˚C. The feeding system requires 6.8 MW electricity to
compress required inert gas that is 578 kg/h of CO2. The energy content of the syngas is 260 MW and
from the gasifier 38 MW of high quality steam can be produced. The Electrical energy required for
the oxygen production is 11.5 MW. Totally 19.6 MW of electrical energy is needed to operate the
process where 60% are required for the production of oxygen. The Energy efficiency of the system is
0.73 and the cold gas efficiency is 0.74. For a closer look at the energy going in and out in the system
see Table 16.

The gases formed during torrefaction contain mostly water, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, acetic
and formic acid. The gas is combustible since they have an energy density of 3.6 MJ/Nm3.

The formed synthesis gas contains mostly carbon monoxide (54%), hydrogen (32%) and some carbon
dioxide (13%) for a closer look see

49
Table 19, the H2/ CO-ratio
ratio for the gas is 0.6.

Figure 15 energy flow scheme off torrefaction in combination with entrained-flow

entrained flow reactor (system 1)

Table 16. The

he energies going in and out in System1

IN OUT
[MW] [MW]
Fuel
Wood fuel 353
Electricity
Air separation unit 12
Grinding of biomass 1,3
Feeding system 6,8
Heat
Drying 37 16
Heating of oxygen 3,3
Torrefaction 14
Gasification 35
Gas
Product gas 261
TOTAL 427 312
Energy efficiency: 0,73
Cold gas efficiency: 0,74

50
Table 17. Stream table: presents the composition of the fuel before and after torrefaction

Dry wood Torrefied wood

1 % of DS % of DS

C 50,4 55,8
H 5,9 5,8
O 43,2 37,9
S <0,01 <0,01
Cl <0,01 <0,01
N 0,1 0,1

Table 18. The gas composition of the torrefaction gases

Gas composition of the gases formed from torrefaction

2
Temperature C 310
Pressure bar 1
Mass flow kg/h 15599
LHV dry gas MW 25
DRY GAS [vol %] [kmol/h]
CO2 7 1550
CO 5 616
Acetic acid 6 1797
Formic acid 10 2116
water 31 2739
Methanol 11 1739
Lactic acid 6 2509
Furfural 1 396
N2 22 1467
Hydroxy acetate 2 670
TOTAL 100 15599

51
 Table 19. The syngas composition after entrained-flow gasifier with gas cooler

¤ Stream data of the stream located

3 after the quench
Temperature C 40
Pressure bar 40
Mass flow kg/h 79726
Molar weight g/mol 22
Molar flow kmol/h 3624
LHV dry gas MJ/kg 11.3
DRY GAS [vol%] [kmol/h]
CO2 13 494
CO 54 1987
H2 32 1192
TOTAL 100 362393

11.2 System 2: The fluidized bed gasification

11.2.1 Process description
The fluidized bed gasification system consists of: drying, feeding, gasification, gas cooling, particle
remover and a scrubber. Firs t the wood is dried from a moister content of 50%-60% to 20-30%. For
this a fluidized bed steam dryer was used, where the needed steam is supported by the gas-cooling.
The produced dirty steam generated trough the drying is recovered by producing low pressure steam
which can be used in the combine cycle unit for electricity and heat production (Ekbom et Al, 2000).

The gasifier used is a pressurized bubbling gasifier; it uses oxygen, steam and air as gasification media
and is operated at 950˚C and 20 bars. After the gasification the gas is going through a cyclone where
particles removed and re-circulated. The hot gas leaving the cyclone is then going through a
multistage cooler where high pressure steam is produced that can be used for electricity and heat
production, the gas is cooled down to 250 ˚C. After this the gas is going through a particulate filter
where particles are removed. some of the gas are later recycled and the rest of the gas is entering a
scrubber where the gas is cooled to 40˚ C through heat exchange and the moisture content of the gas
is condensed (Ekbom et Al, 2000).

11.2.2 Material and energy- balances

In Table 12 the energy- flow sheme of the fluidized bed gasification can be visualized and Table21 the
realted stream table is visualized . From

Developer Technology Supplier Capacity [MW] Time of operation Uses

Topell energy (NL) Toroidal fluidized Torftech Inc (UK) 43.7 100 h Co-firing
bed

Stramproy Oscillating belt Stramproy green 65 1500 h Co-firing

green(NL) conveyor

Torr-Coal (NL) Rotary drum Torr-coal 9.5-13 Co-firing/ gasification

52
BioEndev (Sw) Rotary drum 0.2 (23-19) gasification

Global bio coal n/a 131 100 tests

Energy Inc

ECN (NL) Moving bed ECN Engineering 0.25-0.5 gasification

and service

River Basin Energy Fluidized bed (72.93) a lot Co-firing

Integro Earth Fuels Turbo dryer Wyssmont 9.58 1080

The BioTfuel Thinking about Not yet decided (15 then 0 gasification
project turbo dryer
800)

Table 14 it can be seen that totally can be seen that the process require in total electrical energy of
15 MW and 73% % of this are reqiured for
fo the production of oxygen(11 MW). The he overall efficiency of
the system is 0.94 and the cold gas efficiency is 0.77

Figure 16. Energy flow scheme over System

ystem 2

Table 20. The efficiency of system 2

Cold gas efficiency 0.77

53
Energy efficiency 0.94

The energy content of the produced gas is 231 MW, in Table21 the gas composition of the synthetic
gas is visualized. It can be seen that the main components are carbon monoxide, hydrogen and a
quite large amount of carbon dioxide (28%). There are some impurities left in the gas as well the H2/
CO-ratio of the gas is approximately 1.

Table21. The gas composition located after the scrubber

Stream data of the stream located after the scrubber
1
Temperature C 40
Pressure bar 20
Mass flow kg/h 84008
Molar weight g/mol 24
Molar flow kmol/h 3500
LHV dry gas MJ/kg 9
DRY GAS [vol%] [kmol/h]
CO2 28 991
CO 30 1061
H2 30 1036
CH4 7 238
C6H6 0,06 2
N2 5 161
H2S 0,02 0,8
COS 0,001 0,05
HCN 0,001 0,04
H2O 0,4 14
TOTAL 100 3503

54
 13. Analysis & discussion

13.1 Torrefaction development today

At first glance when reading about today’s torrefaction it seems like the processes already are
commercialized, however when looking more closely its noticed that none of the existing
torrefaction units is in full operation at a commercial scale. Some plants have a close to commercial
scale, but they are not in constant operation. The time that the existing plants have been operated is
in the range of 100 to 1500 hours approximately, which can be visualized in
Developer Technology Supplier Capacity [MW] Time of operation Uses

Topell energy (NL) Toroidal fluidized Torftech Inc (UK) 43.7 100 h Co-firing
bed

Stramproy Oscillating belt Stramproy green 65 1500 h Co-firing

green(NL) conveyor

Torr-Coal (NL) Rotary drum Torr-coal 9.5-13 Co-firing/ gasification

BioEndev (Sw) Rotary drum 0.2 (23-19) gasification

Global bio coal n/a 131 100 tests

Energy Inc

ECN (NL) Moving bed ECN Engineering 0.25-0.5 gasification

and service

River Basin Energy Fluidized bed (72.93) a lot Co-firing

Integro Earth Fuels Turbo dryer Wyssmont 9.58 1080

The BioTfuel Thinking about Not yet decided (15 then 0 gasification
project turbo dryer
800)

Table 14. The fact that the plants can be operated for this long show that the torrefaction work, but
it has to be reason to why the processer are not in full operation, obviously there is some kind of
problems that needs to be solved.

Most of the investigated torrefaction developers plan to produce torrefied wood for co-firing instead
of gasification. The main reason for this is probably that it does not exists any commercial biomass
gasification plant which leads to less demand for torrefied biomass that will be used for gasification.
Another reason is probably that it’s harder to reach the required quality of the torrefied product that
will be used for the gasification than for the co-firing. As mentioned before the entrained-flow
biomass gasification demands an easy fed product which is brittle and non fibrous, this kind of
demand does not exist for co-firing and it is therefore less demanding to produce a raw-material to
this kind of process.

The common opinion among experts is that the torrefaction together with entrained-flow reactors
will be used in the future as a part of a commercial method for producing liquid fuels. Other
indications of that are that companies are looking in to the possibility of producing torrefied wood

55
for gasification, despite the small demand of the product. A Large project that involves torrefaction
in combination with entrained-flow reactors are also taking place such as the BioTfuel project that
aims to set up the whole biomass to liquid chain comprising the torrefaction unit. The Project have a
long way left to commercialization and are today in the planning stage of a pilot plant chain, but the
fact that 112.7 million euro are allocated to this project so far and that torrefaction together with
entrained-flow reactors are the chosen technology gives a hint that the technology is thought to be
advantageous. The project of the company BioEndev also indicates that the technology can be
commercialized since 100 MSEK has been allocated for a new industrial plant for torrefaction. The
planning for large project like the one described does not tell us that the technology is advantageous,
but the fact that investors are willing to invest millions of dollars in projects that include the
technology indicated that it is a good chance that the technology is advantageous.

13.2 The Process

13.2.1 The material and energy balances
It can be seen in Table 16 and Table 20 that System 2 has the largest energy efficiency also more
“fine” and expensive energy in the form of electricity is required in System 1 compared to System 2,
this is not advantageous. However some additional energy has to be added to System 2 since a large
compression step and an energy consuming gas cleaning is needed before the production of second
generation fuels. It is possible that the required electricity of System 2 then will reach the electricity
used of System 1 and that the energy efficiency of System 2 will approach the energy efficiency of
System 2.

The gas produced from System 1 is cleaner and does not have to go through as severe gas cleaning
that consumes energy as System 2 has to. At least an energy consuming catalytic cracking unit has to
be added to System 2 to gain a sufficient purity for the production of Second generation fuels.
System 1 has the advantage that the formed gas has a higher pressure which means that a smaller or
no energy demanding compression step is needed for the production of second generation fuels.
One advantage with System 2 is that is has the more advantageous H2/ CO ratio compare to system
2 that have a H2/ CO- ratio of 0.6. This means that System 1 has to go through a more severe CO-
conversion (WGS) if to reach the H2/ CO-ratio of 2 that is desired for the production of FT-fuels and
Methanol synthesis that is a second generation fuels. This means that there will be no large
difference in capital investment and energy requirements between the both systems.

The cold gas efficiency of System 1 is lower than the cold gas efficiency on System 2 this means that
more of the woods energy goes to waste in System 1, probably due to the energy lost in the
torrefaction unit, since the conversion is higher in the entrained-flow gasifier compared to the
fluidized-bed gasifier. There also exists a possibility that the gas composition of System 1 is not
entirely correct, since it is based on an assumption, therefore more investigations is needed before
something can be told for certain. If it is desired that more of the energy in the original wood shall be
present in the synthesis gas in System 1 it is it possible to use the gases formed during torrefaction as
a quench to cool the synthesis gas and in this way add the “lost” energy from the torrefaction. This
would lead to higher cold gas efficiency and that a more energy rich synthesis gas obtained, but if
that is done more external heat has to be added to the drying. The amount of nitrogen in the gases
formed from torrefaction has to be overlooked before using this solution, so that no pollution of the
synthesis gas occurs.

56
In the investigated case a relatively high torrefaction temperature was used and hence the energy
yield was only 0.85 which is lower than 0.9 that usually is said to be the energy yield. The high
temperature is advantageous since it is a greater chance that the torrefaction gases are combustible
and that the feeding to the gasifier is easily done. It does not matter so much that some amount of
energy is lost during the torrefaction since it can be used elsewhere in the process as for example as
heat supply for the drying or for quenching of the gas, where it is added to the product again.

When performing the material-and energy balance there were no data available on the formed
torrefaction gases, therefore the gas composition was estimated to be the same as the gases
produced during torrefaction of Larch tree under similar conditions, this seams eligible since both
larch and spruce are softwood. There is some major differences in the composition between larch
and ordinary softwood, it can be seen from Table 3 that larch lies in the upper frame of softwoods
hemicellulose- and lignin- content and not in the range at all when it comes to the cellulose content
of softwood. The difference in composition means that probably also a different gas compositions of
the two species of wood are formed during torrefaction, i.e not entirely correct gas phase
composition for Spruce is assumed. However the gas contains all the energy that is lost from the
solids so the assumption is accurate in an energy perspective, but probably not entirely in a gas-
composition perspective.

13.3.3 The choice of torrefaction reactor

The choice of torrefaction reactor is hard since the technology is not fully tried out yet (Verhoeff et
Al, 2011). There are plenty of torrefaction reactors that are in use and investigated today, where the
rotary drum seems to be the most popular technology, concluded from the companies investigated.
One of the drawbacks with the rotary drum technology is said to be the lack of heat transfer
possibilities, see Table 7. However the company BioEndev announces that they have come up with a
solution to this problem, that not yet has been official presents. Other disadvantages are the large
foot-print and that the scalability of the reactor is unproven so-far, but since the heat transfer
problem has been solved and many developers chose to use the reactor this indicates that the
technology is trustworthy if the scalability could be proven. According to (Olofsson, 2011) the up-
scaling of the rotary-drum torrefaction is more limited by the drying located before the torrefaction-
drum. The drying process is needed for all torrefaction technologies and hence would contribute to a
problem in scalability for all systems and not just for the rotary-drum technology. In the BioTfuel
project the multiple heart furnaces was discussed instead of a rotating drum, mainly because it’s bad
up-scaling properties. The multiple heart furnaces is also used by two of the investigated companies
and as can be seen in Table 7 this reactor seems to be a good one since the only drawback with the
reactor is its large size. The reactors recommended from the experts were rotating drum and
multiple hearth furnaces it was also mentioned that a good temperature control is important; this is
possible in both of these reactors. It is hard to tell which of these reactors that is best, the rotating
drum seems popular (many chose to use the reactor), this can be because it is easy to manufacture
and the technology is of an old well known sort. The multiple hearth furnaces have better properties,
but not so many companies have been willing to try it. Today it is hard to tell which reactor that is
the best since the technology is relatively new and a lot of more tests have to be tried. The reactor is
in the beginning of the development and better and better technologies are coming, but many of
them are still secrets.

57
13.3.1 The formation of pellets
Despite the advantages to produce torrefied pellets, there are almost no companies that do it. It is
even mentioned by some companies that they looked in to the technology and that they easily could
point out that the making of pellets would be extremely costful, probably due to difficulties in getting
the pellets to stick together. To create torrefied pellets that later shall be used for gasification could
be hard when the feeding system of the entrained flow gasifier demands a torrefaction process of
high temperature and a high temperature makes it hard to create pellets with no binding material.
One solution to this could be to add some kind of binder, but that could be expensive and possible
also add problem in the gasification process. This indicate that the making of pellets have reached
less than the torrefaction technology and that it is not of as large interests as the torrefaction, but
there still exists potential for the technology.

13.3 Potential obstacles to overcome in the technology

Neither the torrefaction technology nor the biomass gasification technology are as mentioned before
commercialized today and there are still obstacles to overcome. The most common opinion to why
the technology is not yet commercial is that it is very new and therefore not fully understood. For
example the process have to be further investigated when it comes to how it shall be adapted to
different biomasses, prevent dusting and so on. The developers need to learn more about how the
process really works , therefore the setting up of torrefaction plants no matter what the product will
be used for promotes the development of the technology and that is what is needed today.

The scales of the torrefaction units that are in operation today are in the range of 0 to 9.5 MW; this is
not a large scale and can hardly be called a commercial scale. Larger plants are planned for example
by the Global biocoal company which plan to build a plant with a capacity of 131 MW. These kinds of
projects are large. According to experts it will not be any problem scaling up the reactors in the
future. A problem that is mentioned with the scaling-up of the total process is the drying. The drying
for such large plants has to be enormous and could be a problem to solve in a constructural point of
view. The biomass to liquid chain is said to be more advantageous at large scale, this can be a
problem since most of the developer’s wont risk to set up a large scale unit. If only small scale units
are set up and it is hard to tell if they work efficiently or not. The energy consumption for drying of
the wood is high therefore it is important that much focus is put on the process to optimize the
energy consumption in order to gain an energy efficient system. The reason for the high energy
consumption for drying is that a certain residence time is needed on the drying which demands a
high temperature to ensure high evaporation rates. (Alsen, 2011)

Another important issue with the drying is from where the required heat is to be taken. Electricity is
not wise, since it is expensive, oil or other fossil fuels are not advisable since this leads to a fuel-
product that is not carbon neutral, biomass would be a good choice, but it would lead to burning of
the own product. The energy required for the drying is the same for both systems so it does not point
in favor for any of the investigated system. Some of the energy that is sacrificed on the drying can
easily be used as for example district heating, but only a part since district heating requires
production of high pressure steam, which is only possible at higher temperatures.

According to experts one obstacle is that it is hard to inject the torrefied biomass into the reactor
with the help of the conventional feeding method. The hardest problem with the feeding-system
seems to be where the particles are fed through pneumatically transport (transported through a

58
fluidized-bed) since it is hard to get the fibrous biomass to fluidize properly. This problem can be
solved by developing new feeding methods that are suitable for biomass instead of using the
commercial one, solutions like that has already start to develop an example of this is for example the
piston feeding, that also demands much less inert-gases. Another problem mentioned in the report is
that it is a chance that the size of the feeding system is becoming too large since the density of the
torrefied wood is less than for coal.

13.4 The situation of today

There is enough biomass in Sweden to increase the production of liquid fuels from biomass grown in
Sweden, but not enough to produce energy for all the energy sectors using fossil fuels in Sweden.
Therefore, if the whole supply of liquid fuels shall be fulfilled some biomass probably have to be
imported from other countries, this would probably also be cheaper. Today the biomass is more
expensive than coal; this means that it is cheaper to produce liquid fuels through the gasification of
coal than from biomass and also the technology with the coal as base already exists. As long as this is
the case it is hard for the companies that chose to use biomass to compete with coal gasifies,
however there is a chance that there will be taxes on using coal for the purpose of producing liquid
fuels in similar ways that it is today for producing combined power and heat and district heat. Also
the coal supply is of limited of access and the companies are forced to think more and more on the
environment. One Idea could be to import cheaper biomass from other countries, this would not be
as cheap as the coal is today but cheaper, another problem with this solution would be that there is a
risk that it includes longer transportations that probably will contribute to the use of fossil fuels,
which will lead to a not totally renewable fuel source. To make sure that the production of liquid
fuels are totally renewable all the transports and logging of biomass has to take place with renewable
fuels also all the energy supplies to the process need to be renewable. This would not be possible
today since it is too expensive, but maybe in a soon future and in the meanwhile it is better to use a
partly renewable fuel than no renewable fuels at al. The transport sector is a sector that needs to be
focused on when it comes to the use of renewable fuels since it is far behind other sectors and the
development of Biomass to liquid chains is a good start.

59
14. Conclusions

• There is no obvious choice of torrefaction reactor; many are tried out at this early state of
the torrefaction development. Two advantageous reactors are rotary drum and the multiple
heart furnace. Both of them have good temperature control, and the rotary drum is one of
the most commonly used torrefaction reactor.

• Major observed obstacles with torrefaction in combination with entrained-flow gasifier are:
it is hard to get the conventional feeding system to the gasifier to work for torrefied wood,
the relatively new technology needs to be more tried to be able to optimize it to various raw
materials and parameters, a good ash composition flow down the entrained flow reactor
needs to be achieved, the high price of biomass is also an obstacle.

• Not many torrefaction developers today have chosen to produce torrefied pellets because it
is too expensive also it is not easy to produce torrefied pellets that can be used for
entrained-flow gasification, since a high temperature of the torrefaction is needed

• System 1 has a both a lower energy efficiency and a lower cold gas efficiency than System2,
However the difference in cold gas efficiency was not that large.

• A lot of experts in the field of torrefaction and gasification believe in- torrefaction in
combination with entrained flow reactors for production of liquid fuels, also much money is
allocated to torrefaction projects, even though the most of them are producing wood for co-
firing instead of gasification. Money is also allocated to the set up of gasification of biomass.
According to material- and energy-balances the energy efficiency of torrefaction in
combination with entrained flow reactor is good, and if the energy consumption of the gas
cleaning and compression is added possible even better than for fluidized bed gasification.
Therefore it is concluded that torrefaction in combination of entrained flow gasification
seems to be an advantageous technology, even though some obstacles remains to be solved.

60
15. Abbreviations

BTL Biomass to liquid

Cp Heat capacity [KJ/Kg K]

LHV lower heating value

H Enthalpy [KJ/kg]

M mass flow of biomass

Syngas Synthesis gas

System 1 Torrefaction in combination with entrained flow-

gasification

System 2 Fluidized bed gasification of biomass

WGS Water gas shift

η Efficiency

ηcg Cold gas efficiency

T1 The starting temperature [K]

T2 The temperature that the media is cooled to [K]

ΔT Temperature change [K]

61
16. Acknowledgement
A special thanks to my supervisors Tomas Ekbom and Rolando Zanzi, for their guidance.

Thanks also to:

BioEndev and especially Ingmar Olofsson, Erik Sandström and Anders Nordwaeger who helped me
better understand torrefaction and provided me with experimental data.

Lennart Alsen at Torkapparater that helped me with the drying calculations in this project.

All the persons that has been interweaved through mail, phone and in person and specially thanks to
Norbert Ullrich at Uhde.

62
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Appendix 1- Interview questions for thesis

Aim: To investigate if experts believe that torrefaction together with entrained flow gasification is an
advantageous way of producing synthetic gas and to identify the possible bottle necks with the
technology.

1. Which methodology do you think is the best to produce synthetic gas (that later will be
used to produce FT-fuels) from bio-mass? Entrained flow reactors together with
torrefaction as a pre-treatment method or gasification in a fluidized bed reactor together
with drying. Motivate your answer

2. Do you think that torrefaction together with an entrained flow gasifier will be used in the
future as a commercial method for the production of liquid fuels? Motivate your answer.

3. What do you think is the hard part with the process mentioned above? Why is the
process not commercial today?

4. What kind of reactor is the best choice for large scale torrefaction?

5. Do you think the up scaling of the reactors will be a problem when developing the
torrefaction technology?

6. Do you think that lack of biomass flexibility is a problem when developing torrefaction
technology in commercial scale?

7. Do you think that the size of the feeding system will be a problem when developing the
entrained flow gasification technology?

69
 Appendix 2- Material and energy balance
alance data for torrefaction
Torrefaction
Experimental
values from
BioEndev

IN UT
T fin 25 ˚C
Fin 12,5 kg/h Fut 9,575 Kg/h
MJ/kg LHV dry ash
LHV dry ash free 19,09 TS free 21,15 MJ/kg TS
Qfin 238,625 MJ/h Qfut 202,51125 MJ/h
Gin 12,5 kg/h Qkyl 0,75 MJ/h
Required heating 9,468 MJ/h
gas
0,00263 MW temperature 315 ˚C
Mass yield 0,766
Energy yield (based on
LHV) 0,85
Scaled up Torrefaction
TORREFACTION 300MW ut
Biomass In T- m OUT
T fin 25 ˚C T 310 ˚C
Fin 66662,96317 kg/h dry Fut 51063,82979 51063,82979 Kg/h
Fin DAF 63996,44464
MJ/kg LHV dry ash
LHV dry ash free 19,09 TS free 21,15 KgTS 21,15 MJ/kg TS
Qfin 1270588,235 MJ/h Qfut 1080000 MJ/h 1080000 MJ/h
352,9411765 MW 300 MW 3999777,79 MJ/h
QVÄRME 50493,19242 MJ/h
14,02588678 MW
Volatiles 0,234 wt%
Gas Flow 15599,13338 kg/h
Cp
% units (J/mol H Hc LHV
Wt%* increase m [kg/hour] wt% n [mol] vol [m3] vol% M [g/mol] K) (J/mol) Es( J/h) Es MW [KJ/mol] [kJ] LHV[MW]
CO2 0,02 0,004 0,00324517 0,023245173 1549,592099 0,099341858 35218,00224 1684,918554 0,072802473 44 46,024 13116,84 20325751,62 0,005646 0 0 0
CO 0,006 0,004 0,00324517 0,009245173 616,3106142 0,039510683 22011,09336 1053,066535 0,045501219 28 29 8265 181921686,7 0,050534 283 6229139,4 1,730317
Acetic acid 0,016 0,0135 0,01095246 0,026952458 1796,73073 0,115185519 29920,57834 1431,476358 0,061851666 60,05 63,4 18069 540634930,1 0,150176 876,1 26213419 7,281505
Formic acid 0,022 0,012 0,00973552 0,031735518 2115,583695 0,13562667 45960,97535 2198,889636 0,095010292 46,03 45,68 13018,8 598356745,9 0,16621 254,6 11701664 3,250462
water 0,02 0,026 0,02109362 0,041093623 2739,422692 0,175619985 152190,1496 7281,162769 0,314606694 18 33,48 9541,8 1452167969 0,40338 0 0 0
Methanol 0,02 0,0075 0,0060847 0,026084699 1738,883329 0,111477015 54272,26371 2596,522752 0,112191344 32,04 61,43 17507,55 950174370,6 0,263937 715 38804669 10,77907
Lactic acid 0,021 0,0205 0,01663151 0,037631511 2508,628007 0,160824109 27848,88995 1332,361531 0,057569082 90,08 190 54150 1508017391 0,418894 1362 0
Furfural 0,004 0,0024 0,0019471 0,005947104 396,4515538 0,025415872 4126,265131 197,4109897 0,008529794 96,08 1,74 495,9 2046214,879 0,000568 2344 0
N2 0,022 0 0,022 1466,58519 0,094020419 104756,085 5011,796808 0,21655124 14 0 0 0
Hydroxy
acetate 0,006 0,005 0,00405647 0,010056466 670,393823 0,04297787 7443,031231 356,0934926 0,015386196 90,07 50 14250 9553111,978 0,002654 1429 0
SUM 0,157 0,233991725 15598,58173 23143,69943 1,461999 82948891 23,04136
Cp torrefied
material (J/g K) 6,3 TOT 24,503358 MW
Sensible energy
torrefied
material
out(MJ/h) 91685,10638
Gas
25,46808511 MW density 3,5840809 MJ/Nm3
35387,23404
9,829787234
losses
**estimated
from MJ prins
2, % of biomass
inlet

71
Appendix 3–Material and energy balances over entrained flow gasification and efficiency calculation

Biomass flow 51063 kg/h

Oxygen/biomass ratio* 0,59 g/g
Oxygen demand 30127,17 kg/h
molar Oxygen demand 941,4740625 kmol/h

volume injected CO2 6,3 m3/ton fuel

Moles injected 0,257619447 kmol/ton fuel
Total CO2 injected 13,15482184 kmol/h 578,812161 kg/h
CO2 mass in 578,812161 kg/h
MASS IN 81768,98216 Kg/h
MASS OUT 80237,09216 Kg/h
MASS Out without feeding 79658,28 Kg/h

Electrical energy required for oxygen

production: 380 KWh/ton Oxygen
Electrical energy required for oxygen
production: 11,4483246
Scaling-factor from Tomas 0,00036
Electrical energy required for oxygen
production: 10,8457812 MW
Average electrical energy req 11,1470529 MW

Gas composition with feeding gas

m incl feed Cp KJ/ mol
mol% wt wt% [kg/h] n [kmol/h] mol% Hc [kJ/mol] Ec [KJ/h] Ec [MW] C Es [kJ] MW
CO2 0,13 5,72 0,27264061 22296,89422 506,7475959 0,133004 0,054407 30327678,1 8,424355
H2 0,35 0,7 0,03336511 2657,807245 1328,903622 0,348792 285,84 379853811 105,5149 0,0289318 42292331,21 11,74787
CO 0,52 14,56 0,69399428 55282,3907 1974,371096 0,518205 283,2 559141894 155,3172 0,033882 73585205,63 20,44033
20,98 80237,09216 3810,022315 938995706 260,8321 146205214,9 40,61256

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LHV [MJ/kg] 11,70276341
Cold gas efficiency (gasifier + torrefier) 0,737859164
Cold gas efficiency (gasifier) 0,873585023
Cp kJ/mol C H heating [KJ] H heating [MW]
heating of Oxygen 0,031416 11830939,66 3,286372128

Hs 100C
Cp [kJ/mol C] kJ [kJ/mol] λ [kJ/mol] n [mol] m [kg]

Steam generation CO2 0,054407 31981915,08 3,77 2,258666667 6,028667 25574484,9 460340,729
H2 0,0289318 44599185,64
CO 0,033882 77598944,12
154180044,8
MW 42,82779023
TOTAL efficiency system1 IN [MW] OUT [MW]
fuel 353 recoverable heat drying 50
recoverable heat cooling
heat supply drying 37 torr 18
recoverable heat
heat supply torrefaction 14 gasification 40,6
electricity for grinding 1,3 Energy in product 260
electricity compression 6,8
11,5
heating of oxygen 3,3
TOTAL 426,9 368,6
TOTAL efficiency system1 0,863434059
* MJ Prins (2005)

73