Competitive Edge: Bio2oil

Q: What was the reason for founding your organization – what was the open niche you saw that could be addressed with a new product or service? What was the problem, or gap, or opportunity?

Bio2oil was founded with the aim of commercializing the Hydrothermal Liquefaction technology (HTL). It’s a process that converts biomass to liquid fuel in the presence of water. We focus on getting the process efficient and robust and to make the technology cost efficient for deployment near the biomass sources. In general, the market has been focused on getting cost competitiveness via economy of scale, which requires very large central feed supplies. This approach creates large logistic challenges with regard to the scattered sources of biomass.

Bio2oil focuses on providing modular units with an annual capacity of 5000t dry-matter, at competitive CAPEX/capacity cost. Capacity is reached by the number of plants and the produced biocrude can be upgraded to Diesel, jet and bunker fuel at refineries.

Alone the potential European market for these units is several thousand units transportation fuel at refineries or central upgrading units.

Q: Tell us about your organization. What do you do?

Bio2oil focus on providing modular units with an annual capacity of 5000t dry-matter, at competitive CAPEX/capacity cost.

The Units can be housed in two 40′ hi-cube containers and can be deployed onsite in for instance waste water treatment facilities.

Q: What stage of development are you?

Demonstration stage – proven at small, integrated scale, but not yet commercially available

Q: What do your technologies, products or services do and accomplish – how does it (they) work, who is it (they) aimed for?

The modular units of Bio2oil (Hyliq 5000) can convert approximately 5000 tons biomass (dry matter) per year, corresponding to approximately 4 ton of biomass sludge/slurry per hour producing in the range of 10000 barrels/year of stable biocrude oil with energy content of approximately 35 MJ/kg (only a little lower than regular crude oil at 42MJ/kg. In addition, it provides a small solids fraction containing initial ash content, bio-available phosphate and a small amount of hydrochar.

The residual water stream is void of microplastics, drug residues and pathogens.

Q: Competitively, what gives your technology, product or service set an edge in cost or performance, sustainability, or any other aspect, that makes it stand out from the crowd, In short, what makes it transformative?

In general, HTL is the most carbon and energy efficient route to convert waste biomass to liquid fuel.

Bio2oil provides a standardized modular unit that can be fitted into existing biomass conversion facilities, such as WWT plants, MSW collection points, food industry, agriculture and forestry.

Q: What are the 3 top milestones you have accomplished in the past 3 years?

1. Demonstrated more thousand hours of production runs at existing pilot plant (Aarhus University).

2. Submitted patent applications on key technology advances and secured freedom to operate.

3. Validated key components such as heat exchanger and pressure exchanger technology in near full scale.

Q: What are the 3 top milestones you will accomplish in the next 3 years?

1. Validate full scale prototype beginning of 2022.

2. Take in major investment to scale the growth (2022).

3. The first 100 units operational (2025).

Q. Where can I learn more about Bio2oil?

Click here to visit Bio2oil’s website.