© csir 2010slide 1 the biorefinery concept – a review bruce sithole 7 october 2010

© CSIR 2010 Slide 1 www.csir.co.za

The Biorefinery Concept – a Review

Bruce Sithole

7 October 2010

© CSIR 2010 Slide 2

Outline of presentation

• Problems facing the industry• Definition of biorefinery• The Integrated Forest Products Biorefinery• Focus areas of Agenda 2020• The challenge of deployment• Extracting value prior to pulping New value from spent pulping liquors Biodiesel from tall oil Examples of energy production


What is the problem?

• Pressures on the pulp and paper industry• Disruptive technologies• Competition from Asia and South America

• No greenfield mills in north America for 20 years• Greenhouse gas emissions


What is the problem?

Rank Disruptive technology

1 News on the internet

2 Tablet computing

3 Internet shopping

4 Electronic books and papers

5 Functional coatings

6 Digital archiving

7 On-demand printing

8 Text messaging

9 Air-laid papermaking

10 Cellulosic bioenergy

Disruptive technologies


Solution

• Can new technology revitalize the pulp and paper industry and, at the same time, help nations solve their energy problems? The biorefinery concept is supposed to do that.


Definition

• Biorefinery • a facility that integrates biomass conversion processes and

equipment to produce fuels, power, and chemicals from biomass

• analogous to today's petroleum refineries, which produce multiple fuels and products from petroleum

• identified as the most promising route to the creation of a new domestic biobased industry


Current mill


Forest biorefinery


The Integrated Forest Products Biorefinery

• Yield from kraft pulping is 50%• Very low rate that needs to be changed

• IFBR accomplishes this while• protecting the ability to produce the core products of

the traditional facility, • but also providing an ability to enhance their

production.



Arguments to supported this:• Existing manufacturing facilities geared to collecting and processing biomass• Too much wealth used to purchase energy• Using a CO2 neutral system for fuels and chemicals is good, cheap insurance.• Movement towards renewable energy system needed to avoid major societal dislocations in the future• With growing budget deficits, pressure to spend large quantities of money to improve the health of public forest, fight massive fires, and transfer more wealth to rural populations.



Example from 2001 US pulp production:• total chemical pulp production 53 million tons• raw material 120 million dry tons of wood• 6 million tons of wood converted into paper products by mechanical or thermomechanical means• 120 chemical pulp mills

Many modern kraft mills have an energy surplus – hence have existing foundations for IFBR

No need to build greenfield mills



• Manufacturing value-added products from greatly underutilised raw material, could significantly improve the return on invested capital at the facilities

• By improving the efficacy of utilising raw materials, the industry could protect its traditional product lines

• IFBR would protect the core business of the pulp and paper industry by making the entire base more profitable

Advantages



• Manufacturing value-added products from greatly underutilised raw material, could significantly improve the return on invested capital at the facilities

• By improving the efficacy of utilising raw materials, the industry could protect its traditional product lines

• IFBR would protect the core business of the pulp and paper industry by making the entire base more profitable

Preliminary estimates showed promising economics


Current mill

net revenue from traditional product, pulp = $5.5 billion


Forest biorefinery

new value streams created with biorefineries


Forest biorefinery

potential net revenue


Forest biorefinery

Before pulping:• Hemicelluloses extracted• Converted to chemicals like ethanol and acetic acid

= $3 billion additional revenue

After pulping and the residual pulping liquors gasified, • Syngas gas turned into power, liquid fuels and/or chemicals• Conversion to power = $3 billion additional• Conversion to transportation fuels = $5 billion more Pathway choice will be driven by economics of circumstances and/or location


Agenda 2020

Formulated and organised the “Forest Biorefinery” research and development efforts into three focus areas:

• Sustainable Forest Productivity • Extracting Value Prior to Pulping • New Value Streams from Residuals and Spent Pulping Liquors


Agenda 2020

Sustainable Forest Productivity:

• Application of biotechnology to sustainable forestry that will allow the management of US forestland at a high intensity on fewer acres.

• A key focus is developing fast growing biomass plantations specifically for the production of economic, high quality feedstocks for bioenergy and biomaterial end uses


Agenda 2020

Extracting Value Prior to Pulping:

• Addresses the opportunities from the time the wood is chipped at the mill but before it is pulped in the digester

• A key focus is hemicelluloses extraction from wood chips prior to pulping followed by their utilization as biomaterial feedstock and/or pulp additive


Agenda 2020

New Value Streams from Residuals and Spent Pulping Liquors:

• Addresses opportunities to manufacture bio-products after the pulp digester.

• A key focus is conversion of biomass, including forest residues and spent pulping liquor (black liquor) into syngas through gasification technologies. The syngas is then converted into liquid fuels, power, chemicals, and other high-value materials


Forest Biorefinery

Creates a diverse group of potential processes and products:

New Processes New ProductsSustainable forest productivity New/better/lower cost feedstocks

Wood extraction Hemicelluloses, sugars, oils, resins, etc

Wood extract conversion Ethanol, acetic acid, polymers, etcWood pyrolysis Resins, wood composites, carbon

productsWood/black liquor gasification Syngas

Gas conditioning Approach tailored to end productsGas conversion Electric power, renewable transportation

fuels, methanol, dimethyl ether, hydrogen


The Challenge of Deployment

Sustainable land use:

• Complex task that requires gaining public and legislative approvals for:

• land use, faster growing trees, forest thinning, and the type and amount of materials to be left on the forest floor after harvesting

• Important commercial issues include more economical transportation to allow a larger harvest radius, and determining how increased value will be shared between land owners, harvesters and users



Energy Reduction:

• Significant reductions in energy use are necessary prerequisites in progressing towards biorefineries. • Less energy that is used for the process means more energy is available to “export”

•. A study in the USA showed that the average US pulp and paper mill uses over 20 million BTUs per ton. This could be reduced to 15 million BTUs per ton using the best available technology



Collection of all sustainable residuals for use in an adjacent biorefinery:

• Implement an adjacent biorefinery which will have its own process and not interfere with current “fibre line” operations use • The residual biomass can be as much as 15% for softwoods and 35% for hardwoods

•plus additional biomass from thinnings if the mill is close to managed forests



Extracting value prior to pulping:

• Shorter chain hemicelluloses extracted with a mild cook of water prior to pulping in a way that preserves or enhances pulp properties• Kraft pulping energy and bleaching chemicals can be reduced as the chips will cook and bleach faster• Less pulping damage will occur and will compensate for some or all of the strength loss in water extraction.



New value from spent pulping liquors:

• Objective is to replace older Tomlinson chemical recovery furnaces with modern black liquor gasifiers. There are two reasons for wanting to do this:

1. To increase thermal efficiency from 30 to 40% for an older Tomlinson, to 50 to 60% for a gasifier. This is a huge gain in usable output.

2. To replace steam from a Tomlinson with syngas from a gasifier

• The syngas can be burned in a conventional boiler to make steam as needed• Can also be converted to ethanol, diesel, dimethyl ether or value added chemicals



Biodiesel from tall oil:

• Many pulp mills have tall oil recovery systems and sell the tall oil for conversion into multiple products• When the market value of tall oil is close to its BTU value there is no incentive to change• The economics are dependent on the differential between tall oil and diesel.


Progress

Positively impacting the environment:

• Options for communicating the industry’s environmental performance are being considered

Increasing fibre yield:

• Several options were examined and it was concluded that the best opportunity for increasing fibre yield was borate autocausticizing, a novel approach that offers the possibility of capital equipment elimination, energy savings, and yield improvement.


Progress

Reducing the complexity of drying :

• Paper dewatering is an obstacle to energy self-sufficiency. It is also expensive to ship water in the paper• Better understanding of sheet dewatering can increase press solids by 10%


Progress

Retaining and improving fibre functionality:

• Novel calcium and silica-based fillers can increase filler levels, lower basis weights and reduce costs while maintaining or improving quality • The technology may lower production costs by US$50 per ton of paper while maintaining physical properties, brightness, opacity, strength, and bulk, and allowing basis weight reduction


Progress

Sustainable forest productivity:

• Clonal softwood forestry is considered key for keeping the North American industry globally competitive


Progress


• A number of mills are exploring this option• Flambeau River Biofuels plans to engineer and construct one of the largest “green diesel” plants in the United States at an existing pulp and paper mill in Park Falls, Wisconsin• The plant will convert 1,000 dry tons per day of woody biomass from bark, sawdust, wood and forest residue into green electrical power, steam and heat to the adjacent Flambeau River Papers plant and green diesel fuel and wax to the domestic market.


Progress


• A number of mills are exploring this option• Canada has the first hardwood prehydrolysis kraft mill that is targeted to produce 600 tonnes/d of dissolving pulp• If the hemicellulose stream can be off-loaded from the recovery system, production of dissolving pulp can be increased from 600 to 800 tonnes/d• The mill should be able to generate new revenue from value-added chemicals in the prehydrolyzate stream


Progress

Creating new value streams from residuals and spent pulping liquors:

• Targeted to production of renewable transportation fuels from forest products industry residuals• The Fischer Tropsch (FT) synthesis was selected as a case study to illustrate the overall economics. • Several gasifier pilot runs have been demonstrated in Sweden and the USA• A TRI black liquor gasifier has been supporting the entire Norampac mill in Trenton, Ontario, Canada since 2003.

• The syngas is burned in the boiler to make steam for the mill


Enerkem: Methanol Synthesis


Nexterra Gasification Technology


Thermal Heat –> 100 MMBtu/hr


Cogen – Up to 10 Mw Electricity


Black Liquor Gasification


The Biorefinery


Pyrolysis Extracts/Byproducts


Progress

Nanotechnology:

• Research is being conducted on various aspects of nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC)• NCC increases the strength and stiffness of materials it’s added to•Just a small amount can increase resistance to stress threefold, making it attractive as a high-performance reinforcing material • Because NCC is affected by magnetic and electrical fields, it could prove useful as a filler in magnetic paper, electronic memory cards and readers, and other electronic products


Nanotechnology

Demonstration plant in Canada will produce a tonne of nanocrystalline cellulose a day


The Biorefinery

A viable and real concept!


Thank You

© csir 2010slide 1 the biorefinery concept – a review bruce sithole 7 october 2010

Documents

forest biorefinery slide

definition biorefinery

paper products

biorefinery concept

core products

energy problems

us pulp production

total chemical pulp