Fischer-Tropsch products from biomass-derived syngas and renewable hydrogen

• Published in: Biomass conversion and biorefinery Vol. 11; no. 6; pp. 2281 - 2292
• Main Authors: Gruber, Hannes, Groß, Peter, Rauch, Reinhard, Reichhold, Alexander, Zweiler, Richard, Aichernig, Christian, Müller, Stefan, Ataimisch, Nabeel, Hofbauer, Hermann
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.12.2021; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Biomass; Biotechnology; Carbon monoxide; Climate change; Commercialization; Electricity; Electrolysis; Energy; Fischer-Tropsch process; Fuel production; Fuels; Gasification; Lignocellulose; Original Article; Powertrain; Productivity; Renewable and Green Energy; Synthesis gas; Transportation; Fischer-Tropsch synthesis; Economic assessment; BtL; ASF distribution; Energy storage; Excess electricity
• ISSN: 2190-6815; 2190-6823
• DOI: 10.1007/s13399-019-00459-5

Global climate change will make it necessary to transform transportation and mobility away from what we know now towards a sustainable, flexible, and dynamic sector. A severe reduction of fossil-based CO 2 emissions in all energy-consuming sectors will be necessary to keep global warming below 2 °C above preindustrial levels. Thus, long-distance transportation will have to increase the share of renewable fuel consumed until alternative powertrains are ready to step in. Additionally, it is predicted that the share of renewables in the power generation sector grows worldwide. Thus, the need to store the excess electricity produced by fluctuating renewable sources is going to grow alike. The “Winddiesel” technology enables the integrative use of excess electricity combined with biomass-based fuel production. Surplus electricity can be converted to H 2 via electrolysis in a first step. The fluctuating H 2 source is combined with biomass-derived CO-rich syngas from gasification of lignocellulosic feedstock. Fischer-Tropsch synthesis converts the syngas to renewable hydrocarbons. This research article summarizes the experiments performed and presents new insights regarding the effects of load changes on the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. Long-term campaigns were carried out, and performance-indicating parameters such as per-pass CO conversion, product distribution, and productivity were evaluated. The experiments showed that integrating renewable H 2 into a biomass-to-liquid Fischer-Tropsch concept could increase the productivity while product distribution remains almost the same. Furthermore, the economic assessment performed indicates good preconditions towards commercialization of the proposed system.