Advancing biofuels

BioFuelNet: Our vision & mission

• Our vision is a Canada with a thriving advanced biofuels industry that is socially, economically and environmentally sustainable.

• Our mission is to support the growth of Canada’s advanced biofuels industry through coordinated research, innovation, effective education, effective policy and strategic partnerships.

• Motivated by concerns around:– Greenhouse gas emissions and associated climate change

– Energy prices

– Food security

Advanced biofuels are produced from non-food materials

Agro-forestry waste Energy crops

Algae Municipal waste3

BioFuelNet Canada is a Network of Centres of Excellence (NCE) that brings together the Canadian biofuels research community. Operates under a $25 million grant over 5 years (2012 to 2017) through the NCE program, $5 M yr-1 from industry.• 10 projects containing 59 work packages

• All work packages with receptors

• Supports commercialization

• Government interaction

• 27 universities, McGill is host

• 71 lead researchers (162 collaborating)

• > 150 partners (90 industry)

• Over 300 Highly Qualified Personnel (HQP) trained

BioFuelNet: About the network

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Examples of BFN’s Community

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Academia

OtherInvestment

Government

Industry

Examples: ~1/3 in each case

Integrated Structure

FEEDSTOCK

UTILIZATION

CONVERSION

SEES6

1. Purpose-grown feedstock2. Residues & waste

3. Bioconversion4. Pyrolysis5. Gasification6. Emerging conversion technologies

7. Combustion & engine operations

8. Life cycle analysis & microeconomics9. Domestic & international policy10. Supply-chain logistics

PROJECTS:

FEEDSTOCK: 1. Purpose-grown feedstock; 2. Residues & waste

CONVERSION: 3. Bioconversion; 4. Pyrolysis; 5. Gasification; 6. Emerging conversion technologies

UTILIZATION: 7. Combustion & engine operations

SEES: 8. Life cycle analysis & microeconomics; 9. Domestic & international policy; 10. Supply-chain logistics

Network Structure

A pilot plant is a small industrial system which is operated to generate information about the behavior of the system for use in design of larger facilities.

- key step in moving applied researchfindings (technology) to commercialization

Pilot plants within

• La Tuque: Forest residues spread over >10 000 km2

• Biomass cannot be easily transported: bulky, perishable

• Generate bio-oil locally with a pyrolyser that is:– Mobile, compact, easy to operate

• Bio-oil can be easily transported and stored• Agri-Therm makes a patented, fluidized

bed mobile pyrolysis unit, and has begun to market its technology.

• UQTR has purchased a pilot mobile pyrolyser from Agri-Thermfor the experimental forest of École forestière de La Tuque

Agri-Therm pilot mobile unit

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Pulp and paper pilot plant at Innofibre

• InnoFibre: Centre d’innovation des produits cellulosiques

• Part of Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR)

• Part of BFN pyrolysis work

Innofibre is a centre for research leading to development of innovative products

and processes related to lignocellulosic biomass. It has product and process

development facilities in the laboratory and at the pilot plant scale, ranging from

biorefinery to pulp and paper products.

Pilot plant for pulping: used for the mechanical

and chemical pre-treatment of biomass

Interstage reactor: for

lignocellulosic material.

• Part of BFN work on emerging conversion technologies• Installed at the Innofibre pilot plant at the Université du

Québec à Trois-Rivières• Microalgae production • The unit has a volume of 10.3 m3

Alga-FuelTM pilot tank

• Also a key part of BioFuelNet work on Bioconversion• Pretreatment/hydrolysis/fermentation work is

performed at the UBC Process Development Unit (PDU) at the University of British Columbia (UBC) Forest Sciences Center

Specs of the system:• 2 Liter batch steam gun unit from Staketech with a

boiler for steam supply• An 8 liter pulping/pretreatment digester (4 x 2 liter

reactors)• 2 x 40 liter fermenters (and smaller 5 and 1 liter

capacity fermenters) that can be used to perform the enzymatic hydrolysis and fermentation steps of biological conversion

• A range of additional biomass processing equipment including pulp refiners and screens.

UBC Process Development Unit

Organosolv Digester

Steam

Pretreatment

• Garett Munch, Master’s student funded by BFN.• Used ICFAR research facilities to scale his project

to a 100-L pilot-scale reactor system• Used yeast, Rhodosporidiumdiobovatum, to grow biodiesel precursors– At pilot scale: Grew very fast and

produce fatty acids in abundance

– It also allows metabolism of different carbon sources; one of them is the sludge left over after producing biodiesel from vegetable oil.

100-L pilot-scale reactor system

Gasification Unit - McGill

GEK Down-draft reactor: Pilot scale

Journal of Energy Engineering 2016

Gasification Unit – McGill

Gasifying of 1kg

of biomass

Produces about 2

m3 of gas

produces about

0.75 kWh

12 lamps (60 watt)

Energy Production:

• Enerkem is a company that produces clean fuels and green chemicals from waste

• Partners in BioFuelNet work on Gasification• Pilot facility: Enerkem Westbury

– Capacity: 5 million litres per year (methanol) – Status: in operation since 2009 (syngas), 2010 (methanol), 2012

(ethanol)• Commercial facility: Enerkem Alberta (Edmonton) Biofuels facility

– Capacity: 38 million litres per year– Status: initiated production (biomethanol); commercial

operations expected to begin in late 2015-early 2016; ethanol module currently being added for production start in the second half of 2016

Enerkem

Enerkem facility in Edmonton

Thank you!

514-508-2884 / donald.smith@mcgill.ca / www.biofuelnet.ca

Dr. Donald SmithPresident & Scientific Director

BioFuelNet Canada

Mobile mechanically fluidized bed reactor:• Capacity of ~ 30 kg h-1

• Conversion technology: fast pyrolysis• Only mobile pyrolysis system employing fluidized bed technology• To be delivered to the Forêt Expérimentale de La Tuque at February

22th, 2016• Operates on a heavy duty, standard size pull trailer for easy

transportation and set-up.• The unit is also collapsible, making it safe and energy efficient to

transport • Generates its own power through the recycled use of process bio-

gas making the process self sustaining.• Novel feeding system: Agri-Therm’s proprietary pulse feeding

technology increases the biomass feeding rate over traditional feeding technologies. The unit can support variable feedstock sizes, up to 2.5 cm in diameter and 5 cm in length

Agri-Therm pilot mobile unit