Hot path for waste to fuels: The Digest’s 2017 Multi-Slide Guide to Hydrothermal Liquefaction

Hydrothermal liquefaction has a huge fan base in the biorefinery R&D sector. There’s lots to like.

It’s robust tech and can be applied to attractive, low-cost wet feedstocks (ag resid, sludge, manure) that exploit HTL attributes and minimize deployment challenges associated with pumping. It’s conceptually simple (feed preparation, pump, heated pipe, gravity separate biocrude). HTL biocrude is thermally stable and can be readily upgraded. There’s high carbon efficiency to product; greater than 50% to HC product. Perhaps most importantly in the near-term, the economics compare favorably with other biomass conversion technologies. Yet HTL has not been commercially deployed. Issues include pumping to high pressures, scalable reactor configurations, and capital costs.

The DOE has launched a project to provide scientific and engineering data for the successful commercialization of hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) technology — including overall process performance and economics to meet the Conversion Program goal of $3/gge. At DOE Porject Peer Review, these slides were prepared by the project team led by Justin Billing, Rich Hallen, Andy Schmidt, and Lesley Snowden-Swan at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.