Luleå University of Technology produces pyrolysis bio-oil through co-gasification

In Sweden, Luleå University of Technology is the first in the world to produce renewable fuels from pyrolysis bio-oil in its facility LTU Green Fuels. By co-gasification with black liquor, a renewable fuel is produced. In late October the first truck load of pyrolysis oil came to the LTU Green Fuels plant in Piteå. It has now been successfully converted to a renewable fuel. If one truck load of pyrolysis oil is mixed with black liquor and converted into fuel, the total volume is sufficient to drive a car ten laps around Earth. LTU Green Fuels is one of the world’s most advanced pilot plants for gasification of various types of biomass into synthesis gas and green fuels. The focus is to replace fossil oil with green fuels. Operations are running around the clock.

Through previous research, black liquor has been gasified more than 26,000 hours in the LTU Green Fuels pilot plant in Piteå. The objective of the current program is 1,000 hours of co-gasification of pyrolysis oil and black liquor, which makes a total of about 125 tons of the biofuel dimethyl ether (DME), popularly known as green diesel. This demonstration provides sufficient technical basis to build a large commercial plant using the new technology.

When the initial results of the project “Catalytic gasification” was presented at a conference in Chicago (tcbiomass 2015) in early November, there was great interest. A transformation to the new technology, based on feedstocks from Swedish forests can strongly contribute to reducing negative environmental impact. This means that Sweden could achieve the vision of a fossil-independent transport sector in 2030. More than a third of today’s Swedish fuel usage could be replaced with the new technology.