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Biomass direct chemical looping process: A perspective

Nobusuke Kobayashi a,*, Liang-Shih Fan b
Department of Chemical Engineering, Nagoya University, Furo-Cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464-8603, Japan William G. Lowrie Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, The Ohio State University, 140 West 19th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
b a

article info
Article history: Received 2 July 2009 Received in revised form 13 December 2010 Accepted 15 December 2010 Available online 12 January 2011 Keywords: Biomass energy Chemical looping process Carbon capture Hydrogen production Economic analysis Energy conversion efciency

abstract
This paper provides a perspective on the biomass direct chemical looping (BDCL) scheme which directly converts biomass into hydrogen and/or electricity with CO2 capture. The discussion involves the preliminary design, potential challenges, and feasibility assessments in the BDCL process. Description of the BDCL process and the characteristics of biomass are provided in order to discuss potential advantage and disadvantage that may occur in this system. The feasibility of employing the BDCL process based on preliminary studies relative to competing biomass technologies and conventional fossil fuel conversion schemes is also discussed based on the perspective of energy conversion efciencies, and economic analysis. Biomass has proven to be less efcient and more cost intensive compared to the current fossil fuel processes, due to its relatively low energy density, high moisture content and distributedresource. However, the BDCL process has the potential to compete against conventional energy generation systems via its high conversion efciency. A preliminary economic analysis demonstrates that BDCL system integrated with CCS to receive carbon credit is capable of producing electricity at a competitive price to the current fossil fuel processes. 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1.

Introduction

The carbon dioxide emission reduction is a major concern for Annex I countries. They are expected to meet the new environmental requirements of green house gas (GHG) emission for the 2008e2012 period as set by the Kyoto Protocol. Emission of GHG, especially CO2, has continued an upward trend since 1970 [1,2]. The R&D on clean, safe, and cost-effective power conversion processes and the adoption of renewable energy sources, such as hydro, wind solar, geothermal and biomass, has been promoted and supported by the governments of these countries in an attempt to reduce CO2 emission. The CO2 can be emitted from a number of different human activities. One of the major sources of this GHG is from the combustion of fossil fuels used in power generation, transportation, and industrial processes [3]. Thermo-chemical power production systems generally utilize coal or natural gas

as their feedstock. Due to its relatively high energy density and well understood processing techniques, fossil fuels are considered dominant candidates for supplying the world electricity requirements. However, combustion of fossil fuels, especially coal, signicantly contributes to carbon dioxide emissions. Several steps are being taken to reduce its release into the atmosphere [4]. The following section will review the conventional CO2 reduction scheme via high efciency process operation and the current carbon capturing technologies.

1.1. Conventional GHG emissions reduction from fossil fuel conversion plants
There are several methods currently being developed to reduce the CO2 emissions from conventional power plants. The reduction of fossil fuel/coal consumption by improving

* Corresponding author. Tel.: 81 52 789 3379; fax: 81 52 789 3271. E-mail address: nsuke@nuce.nagoya-u.ac.jp (N. Kobayashi). 0961-9534/$ e see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.biombioe.2010.12.019

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the energy conversion efciency represents a rst step approach to reducing GHG emissions. The development of efcient power generation systems, such as IGCC and ultrahigh temperature alloys for steam turbine applications, has contributed signicantly to this cause [5]. Additionally, CO2 capture and storage (CCS) methods are being developed to further stabilize its concentration in the atmosphere from fossil fuel processing impacts [6,7].The CCS involves carbon dioxide capture, transportation, and sequestration [8,9]. Here, transportation has been proven feasible with pipeline construction. Geological sequestration refers to storing a large amount of CO2 underground [10,11]. This method is currently under development in several countries such as Norway and Canada. However, methods of sequestration have not yet been proven reliable and safe for long-term storage. There are a number of methods for CO2 capture. These techniques vary depending on its application to the power plant of interest. Overall, each method must be capable of capturing the carbon in a high purity stream to be pressurized and transported to a sequestration site. Though numerous, carbon capture techniques can be divided into three categories; postcombustion pre-combustion and oxy-fuel combustion capturing systems [4,12e14]. Here, the post-combustion capture system refers to separating carbon from the exhaust stream after its combustion with air. The use of a chemical solvent to scrub the CO2 from the ue gas is an established method in coal-red power plants [15e17]. More cost-efcient solvents are continuously under development [18,19]. Alternatively, membrane and solid sorbent separation techniques are also being studied for this application [13,20,21]. In the precombustion capture system, CO2 is removed before the combustion step. Natural gas reforming process is an example of the technique [22]. Finally, the oxy-fuel combustion system uses high purity oxygen instead of air to combust the primary fuel to produce a ue gas comprising mainly of water vapor and CO2. Many of the carbon capture systems currently developed are capable of reducing CO2 emissions from power generation plants [4,23,24]. However, a signicant amount of parasitic energy is required for its removal [4,7,13,16,24]. Thus, integrating carbon capture with coal combustion plants reduces the overall efciency of the industry lowering its protability. Further research is required to achieve better system integration, thereby increasing the energy conversion efciency and hence reducing the CO2 capturing costs. The coal thermochemical processes are well developed elds for energy production. Coupling these systems with carbon capture technologies will potentially allow the respective countries to meet the GHG emissions requirement, but reduce the overall protability of the power plant. Additionally, the use of coal continues our dependence of fossil fuels, a depleting resource. An energy source that is both renewable and environmental would be a highly attractive alternative to the current situation.

1.2.

Biomass energy conversion overview

Biomass is considered a fuel source to partially replace the use of fossil fuels in many thermo-chemical processes [25e29]. This renewable resource consists of bio-residues from plants such as lignocellulosic materials. Biomass is considered carbon

neutral, because the amount of carbon it can release is equivalent to the amount it absorbed during its life time. There is no net increase of carbon to the environment in the longterm when combusting the lignocellulosic materials. Therefore, biomass is expected to have a signicant contribution to the world energy and environment demand in the foreseeable future [3,7]. Replacing some of the current coal feedstock in thermo-chemical processes with biomass will result in an atmospheric carbon reduction. Additionally, if this system is capable of utilizing carbon capture technologies, a net reduction of CO2 is achieved. A power plant that integrates both biomass and CCS technology will receive carbon credit making this process potentially more economically attractive. Several systems are being developed to apply biomass for energy production. Fig. 1 summarizes the application processes. The biomass systems can be divided into two elds of study; biochemical and thermo-chemical processes. Biochemical processes for biomass application consists of the use of a cell culture to produce a desired product. Glucose is derived from the hydrolysis of biomass as the feed for the fermentor [30]. There are three main thermo-chemical systems currently under research; direct combustion, gasication, and pyrolysis. Biomass combustion research is similar to coal combustion technologies. The biomass directly reacts with air to produce heat in the form of steam. The product stream will be used to drive a steam turbine [31]. Ideally, this technology can serve as a substitute to coal in the conventional combustion system. However, due to the high moisture content, relatively low energy density and highly distributed-resource when compared to coal, replacing this fossil fuel with the renewable fuel signicantly reduces the overall efciency of the power plant. In order to offset the process inefciencies, a cocombustion system is proposed where a combination of biomass, waste plastic and coal is used as the feedstock to the combustor [32]. This technology is being proven to be costeffective and practical, because it uses the currently established power plant systems to combust the renewable fuel. Several countries have begun to integrate co-combustion process with their respective power plants [33e36]. The use of biomass for our energy demand is gradually increasing every year [37]. Pyrolysis refers to the heating of a substance in the absence of an oxidizing agent [38]. Using biomass in this process yields char, liquid and gas. Bio-oils with a wide range of heavy and light hydrocarbon chains [39,40] is able to produce by manipulating pressure, residence time, temperature and heating up rate. This technology has the potential of producing valuable liquid fuels that may replace the conventional petroleum stations. However, this extensive and highly complicated process requires further research before industrialization can be considered. With lower operating temperatures compared to combustion systems, gasication process are becoming a potential option for improving the biomass energy conversion efciency. Furthermore, this technology is capable of producing a variety of chemical products, such as methanol and other hydrocarbons, allowing for exible marketability [32,41e43]. The biomass gasication system has been successfully demonstrated under uidized and circulating uidized bed operation. Secondary tar cracking catalyst and steam-reforming techniques are established down stream

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Biomass

Thermochemical Process

Biochemical Process

Combustion

Biofuels:
hydrogen, methane, alcohols, FTD, DME

Fermentation

Gasification

Hydrolysis

Pyrolysis

Anaerobic Digestion

Heat &
Liquefaction

Electricity

Biophotolysis

Chemical Looping

Fig. 1 e Current biomass process applications.

processing methods that have shown promising results in this system [44e47]. Additionally, a biomass and coal cogasication may offset the biomass low energy density issue allowing for the production of both valuable fuels and power [48,49]. Biomass energy is potentially capable of reducing fossil fuel consumption and CO2 emission. However, the biomass energy conversion systems are relatively more inefcient and cost intensive when compared their coal counterpart processes. Table 1 compares the efciencies of coal systems to biomass for the thermo-chemical processes [50]. Furthermore, coupling CCS methods to biomass would reduce the process efciencies. The low efciencies compared to coal hinder the further development of renewable resource. A highly efcient process is needed in order to replace our current coal dependence. The thermo-chemical conversion technology based on the chemical looping process (CLP) has attracted much attention as it requires little energy for CO2 separation [51,52]. This system differs from other processes in that the GHG separates through reaction path design. The CLP technology utilizes metal oxides instead of gaseous oxidants as the oxygen carrier.

In one section of the CLP, this chemical intermediate is reduced with carbonaceous fuels to metal producing CO2 and H2O [53e56]. Condensing the steam from this product stream yields a sequesterable CO2 stream. The reduced metal can then be oxidized to produce electric power and/or chemical. This paper will provide a perspective on the biomass direct chemical looping (BDCL) scheme which directly converts biomass into hydrogen and/or electricity. The discussion will involve the preliminary design, feasibility, and potential challenges with using biomass in this application.

2. Biomass direct chemical looping with CO2 capture

The biomass direct chemical looping process is a strong candidate for using this renewable resource to achieve a higher energy conversion efciency as well as CO2 capture. This process utilizes an iron oxide composite particle to directly react with the biomass in an oxidation/reduction reaction scheme. Li et al. [57] calculated the energy conversion efciency of the BDCL process, using ASPEN plus, to be over 38% on the higher heating value (HHV) basis for power generation with 99% CO2 capture in a 100 MW facility. Furthermore, for the lower valued hydrogen production the efciency was found to be 74% (HHV) for the BDCL system. These results show that this novel technology has the potential to penetrate the current economic barriers and provide a feasible biomass energy conversion process. By capturing the CO2 released, carbon credit can be claimed making this process even more economically advantageous. The following sections will provide a detailed BDCL process description and an overview of its technical and economical advantages. Further description of the characteristics of

Table 1 e Energy conversion efciencies in selected thermo-chemical process [50]. Process Products Energy conversion efciency (%) Biomass
Direct Electricity combustion Rapid pyrolysis Pyrolytic oil, gas, char Gasication Fuel gas 25 37e45 50e60

Coal
35 40e50 55e65

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biomass will also be provided in order to discuss preliminary challenges that may occur with using it in this system.

The overall reaction scheme for the BDCL process in the reducer, oxidizer and combustor is provided below. aC bH2 O a b=2O2 /aCO2 bH2 DH (1)

2.1.

BDCL process description

The schematic ow diagram of the biomass direct chemical looping process is illustrated in Fig. 2. This system consists of three reactors; a reducer, oxidizer and combustor. Here, biomass is injected into the reducer where it is partially gasied into carbon monoxide, hydrogen and other various carbonaceous volatiles. The gaseous fuels reduce the Fe2O3 particles to Fe/FeO producing a mixed stream of CO2 and H2O. Condensing the steam from the ue gas yields a highly pure stream of CO2. A counter-current moving bed reactor is used for the reducer. The biomass feedstock will be injected at roughly the midpoint to create a two-stage move bed reactor. The volatile material within the feedstock will react with the metal oxide above the injection point while the remaining carbonaceous solids reduce the particles below. Additionally, the CO2 produced may be partially recycled back into the reducer to enhance to gasication of the biomass. The reduced particles are then sent into the oxidizer. This unit is also a moving bed reactor. Steam is injected into this section oxidizing the Fe/FeO particles into Fe3O4 while yielding a high purity hydrogen stream. The partially oxidized particles then enter the combustor, an entrained bed. Air is used to regenerate the particles back into Fe2O3 while generating heat. Additionally, the combustor will convey the particles back into the reducer to complete the loop. From this process design scheme, the H2, CO2, and heat streams are produced in separate reactors. Therefore, no separation steps are required reducing the systems costs thereby increase the process efciency. Proper design allows this system to be self-sustaining. The heat generated from the combustor can be used to perform the slightly endothermic reactions that occur in the reducer. The particles can serve as the heat carrier for this step.

For simplicity, a represents the number of carbon components in biomass, while b is the components of water used. This formula illustrates the exibility of the chemical looping system. By varying the carbon to steam ratio, a higher concentration of either hydrogen or heat can be yielded. This can be performed by placing a split stream to directly send a portion of the particles from the reducer to the combustor [58,59]. Direct combustion of the reduced particles produces more heat. This energy can be used to drive a steam turbine for electricity. Additionally, the oxidizer can be completely eliminated if the only desired product is power. Fig. 3 depicts BDCL process for electricity generation. The BDCL process was rst conceived with coal as the feedstock, coal direct chemical looping (CDCL). The BDCL system parallels the CDCL design. Further details regarding the CDCL process and the Fe2O3 particle can be found in previous works [55,56].

2.2.

Biomass characteristics

Before discussing the technical challenges in the BDCL process, the biomass characteristics will rst be discussed. Biomass is readily abundant, but exists widely in various forms depending on the season and location. For example, woody plants grow profusely in Scandinavian countries, Canada and Japan, while herbaceous plants, such as switch grass, are more available in the United States [60e64]. Municipal waste, raw sludge, and sewage sludge are also dened as biomass. However, the high moisture and high ash content within the material makes them not suitable for thermo-chemical energy conversion process until an efcient

Fig. 2 e Process ow of biomass direct chemical looping for hydrogen generation.

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Fig. 3 e Process ow of biomass direct chemical looping combustion for power generation.

dewatering process is developed. Therefore, only woody and herbaceous plants, generally called lignocellulosic biomass, will be considered in this article. Lignocellulosic biomass consists mainly of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin with a minor portion composed of protein, ash and other compounds. Table 2 summarizes the compositions of three types of biomass. Additionally, it also illustrates how the chemical composition varies signicantly depending on the species of the lignocellulosic material. For thermo-chemical processes, this equates to uctuating reaction behavior dependent of the type of plant residue being used. Table 3 then compares the elemental compositions of these plants with coal. A high concentration of carbon is seen in the coal while oxygen is more abundant in biomass due to the higher degree of oxidation of cellulose and hemi-cellulose. Furthermore, the plant residues also have a lower concentration of xed carbons. Therefore, the cellulosic material is more abundant with carbonaceous volatiles when compared to coal. Table 3 shows that biomass is composed of about 75e85% volatile matter. This characteristic is advantageous to the BDCL process because the reactions between the metal oxide and the volatiles are much faster than with the solid fuel. The use of the enhancer gas in the reducer is to promote this gasication affect as described in the previous section. Table 4 illustrates how the ash content is much lower in biomass compared to coal. Depending on soil incorporation, the cellulosic material is composed of 0.5e3% ash on the dry mass basis. Additionally, the heavy metals within, such as cadmium, lead, and mercury, are below the detection limit making the ash treatment much less energy intensive when

Table 2 e Cellulose, hemi-cellulose and lignin content of biomass [28]. Biomass

Wheat straw Switch grass

compared to fossil fuels. However, the alkali metals within biomass, such as potassium, will volatilize in the high combustor operating temperatures only to precipitate in the down stream pipelines causing slagging and fouling. Furthermore, wood with paint or repellent spray may contain a signicant amount of heavy metals. The moisture content of forest biomass is much higher when compared to coal and varies depending of plant type and amount of processing. Generally, fresh cut wood has a 50e60% moisture content on the wet mass basis. This can equilibrate to 15e40% of moisture content after several weeks of sun drying. The wood may be losing the moisture to 5e20% by the heat produced in pulverization process. Additionally, fresh cut switch grass may have 70% moisture content. The nitrogen and sulfur within biomass are below 1% of the total mass friction. From the BDCL thermodynamic calculations, the nitrogen will exit the system as N2 while the sulfur will be released as SO2 from the reducer, because of its concentration within the biomass [57]. Therefore, the sulfur contamination to the hydrogen product stream can be avoided. Due to a low carbon and high oxygen and water content, the biomass heating value is relatively low. Several factors can affect the heating value of the plant material [65,66]. For example, the lignin content is strongly correlated to the energy density of biomass. The higher the lignin content corresponds to an increase in heating value. Additionally, Fig. 4 shows how the moisture content inuences the effective heating value [67]. The energy density of biomass decreases signicantly with an increase in moisture content. The bulk density of the lignocellulosic material is considerably low because of its hollow structure characteristics. The bulk density and heating value properties equate to the energy consumption required for processing, transportation, and storage material of interest.

wt % on dry basis (Average) Cellulose

36.5 40

Hemicellulose
22.5 25

Lignin

2.3.
17.5 12.5

Potential challenges for BDCL process

For the BDCL process development technical feasibility assessment, a number of hurdles have to be overcome. Fig. 5

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Table 3 e Proximate and ultimate analysis of biomass and bituminous coal. Biomass Proximate analysis wt % on dry basis VM
Wood pellet Wheat strawa Switch grassb Bituminous coala a Khan et al. [65]. b Robinson et al. [66]. c by difference.
a

Ultimate analysis wt % on dry basis (d.a.f) Ash

0.2 6.8 3.7 14.7

Heating value MJ kg1 (HHV) S

<0.1 0.2 0.6 0.5 18.6 15.3 17.3 28.3

FC
14.5 21.5 7.8 48.1

C
45.5 56.7 48.3 65.7

H
6.6 6.7 6.0 5.6

Oc
47.7 48.8 44.6 7.7

N
<0.1 1.0 0.5 1.2

80.4 77.9 88.5 32.3

shows a general pathway of biomass thermo-chemical energy conversion process. A reduction or elimination of any step equates to an increase in overall efciency which correlates to a greater protability. Pretreatment is the preparation of the lignocellulosic fuel before entering the conversion process. Specically, for the BDCL system, this mainly involves densication (dewatering, drying, pelletizing) and sizing (pulverizing). Drying is important to this system for two reasons: the vaporized steam can 1) oxidize the reduced iron oxide particles in the reducer and 2) decrease the temperature of the reactor. Both effects will result in a decreased conversion rate and purity of the product stream. Biomass sizing is also an important parameter. It inuences the fuel/particle mixing capability and the pyrolysis/gasication rate of the lignocellulosic material. Consequently, the energy conversion efciency is affected by the sizing. Overall, the pretreatment step is an energy consuming process for the BDCL system. 2.03 MJ of energy is required to dry 1 kg of wood chips from 50% to 20% of moisture content. Pulverizing wood to less than 100 mm biomass powder requires 2.27 MJ kg1 of dry-wood, an unacceptable energy consumption. Fig. 6 illustrates how energy consumption for pulverization increases exponentially as particle size is reduced [68]. To reduce costs, the surplus heat produced from the combustor can be used to dry the feedstock. Additionally, larger biomass grains (1 mm or more) can be tested for reactivity with the iron oxide particles. To reduce transportation costs and feeder complications, pelletizing may be required for reducing the bulk density of the lignocellulosic materials [69]. However, a signicant energy demand will be necessary to pulverize and pelletize the biomass. Alternatively, torrecation

may be a potential solution to the high pretreatment costs. This method refers to a mild thermal treatment where the biomass is converted into a coal-like substance [70]. Torrecation can both reduce the costs for milling and increase the energy density of the cellulosic plant. One of the largest technical barriers for biomass gasication processes is the formation of tar. It causes low carbon conversion and choking in the system. More than 60% of the biomass volatiles become rst stage tar components at around 850 K in fast pyrolysis processes [41,71e74]. High temperature gas cleaning or catalytic reforming is usually required to remove highly viscous material from the process [72,75], reducing the energy conversion efciency and increasing the operating cost. Since the tar components are exposed to over 1400 K in the BDCL reducer, it may decompose to gaseous components before exit. Furthermore, preliminary experiments show that the oxygen carrier is capable of thermally cracking the tar at 1050 K in a N2 environment. Therefore, tar formation may not be a signicant issue for the BDCL process. Further discussion

Table 4 e Ash analysis of biomass and bituminous coal. Biomass wt % on dry ash basis SiO2 Al2O3 Fe2O3 MgO CaO Na2O K2O
Wood pellet 4.3 53.1 Wheat strawa 58.15 Switch grassb Bituminous coala 59.7 a Khan et al. [65]. b Robinson et al. [66].
a

1.3 3.6 2.3 20.3

1.5 1.2 11.51 7.0

8.5 3.0 5.44 1.9

55.9 17.7 11.18 1.8

0.6 4.5 0.38 1.0

16.8 30.0 9.06 2.3

Fig. 4 e Effect of moisture content and ahs content on effective heating vale of various biomasses (Effective heating value is calculated based on the estimation method suggested by Ince [67]).

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Cultivation Fertilizing

Collection Cutting Transportation Storage

Pretreatment Dewatering Drying Pulverizing Pelletizing

Thermo-chemical Energy conversion

After treatment

Production

Distribution Infrastructure

Gas clean up Syngas conversion (Tar, Particle matter, Synthesis Ash, S, Cl, Alkali) Separation Reforming Adjustment CO2 capture Storage Upgrading

Fig. 5 e General pathway of biomass thermo-chemical energy conversion process.

regarding the biomass tar decomposition with the oxygen carrier particle will be provided in future reports. Another technical challenge is the biomass ash. Gasication processes will most likely have no substantial issues with this because of its low content in biomass. However, in some lignocellulosic species, the ash content is relatively large with a high concentration of alkali metals such as potassium. These metals reduce the melting temperature of the ash allowing for fouling, deposition, corrosion, slagging and agglomeration to occur in the reactor [65,76,77]. Fouling or other issues related to ash melting almost always is a problem in the thermo-chemical process with a solid fuel feed. For the BDCL process, an ash removal system may be required to separate it from the metal oxides particles exiting the reducer. Above technical problems are common challenges faced in conventional biomass thermo-chemical conversion process. The technical hurdles needs to be overcome peculiar in the BDCL process are selection of oxygen carrier and design of rector [56,78e80]. Life time of the oxygen carrier, including attrition, deterioration and losses, is one of the biggest problem as well as conversion ratio of the carrier. These problems are directly related to the cost of BDCL operation and the device design. Unlike rapid oxidation reaction in the combustion process, the reaction in the reducer and the oxidizer are relatively slow by the limitation of thermodynamic equilibriums. Gas-solid contacting pattern inside the reactor is important parameter to promote fuel and solid

conversion. Moreover, circulation of high temperature solid between the reducer and the oxidizer would be serious problem for the development of chemical looping system, especially selection of the reactor material. Optimal design of the reactor and oxygen carrier as well as overall system considering above biomass characteristic is important. Further research will be performed to determine the optimum design for this system.

2.4.

Preliminary feasibility assessment

The following sections discuss the feasibility of employing the BDCL process based on preliminary studies relative to competing biomass technologies and conventional fossil fuel conversion schemes. Two criterions are considered; energy conversion efciencies and economic analysis.

2.4.1.

Energy conversion efciency analysis

10000 Power comsumption (kWh/t)

1000

Vibration mill

Generally, energy conversion efciency for a power plant increase when scaling up but decrease when scaling down. One of the reasons of the efciency drop is due to the availability of power generator. Fig. 7 depicts the efciencies of several generators at various capacities. Except for fuel cells, power generation efciency decreases signicantly with the capacity. Though fuel cells provide the best efciency at all plant capacities, it is not currently cost-effective to use [81]. Due to the relatively low energy density and highly distributed-resource, the biomass power plant capacity is much smaller compared its fossil fuel counterpart. Therefore, a system integrated with an optimum power generation scheme is required to make the lignocellulosic conversion industrially feasible. The efciency of the BDCL system is compared to various other thermo-chemical processes [82] in

Power generation efficiency (% LHV)

100 Circulating mill 10

Impact mill

50 40 30 Fuel cell Gas Engine Middle scale Gas Engine Middle scale Gas Turbine Stirling Engine 10 0 Micro Gas Turbine Steam Turbine 1

Hammer mill 1 10 100 1000 10000 50% particle size (m)

20

10

100

1000

10000

Fig. 6 e Relationship between power consumption of woody biomass pulverization and pulverized woody powder size [68].

Power generation capacity (kW)

Fig. 7 e Biomass power plant efciencies in various power generators.

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power generation, hydrogen production appears to be an alternative option for the small scale facilities.

2.4.2.

Initial economic analysis

Fig. 8 e Power generation efciency of various energy conversion processes (The efciencies for the BIGCC, biomass combustion and IGCC systems are obtained from the literature [82]).

Fig. 8. Li et al. [57] calculated the power generation efciency of the 100 MW scale BDCL process with carbon capture to have a 38% (HHV). Scaling down the BDCL system to 15 MW plant, the power efciency falls to 32% (HHV). Additionally, the gure illustrates how a signicant amount of energy is required to scrub the carbon out of the product stream in other gasication and combustion process. The preliminary results show that the BDCL system is capable of having high power generation efciency for both large and small scale plants. Moreover, if the end product of this process is hydrogen, then the efciencies increases to 74% (HHV) [57], because H2 is considered a lower grade of energy compared to electricity. This highly pure product can be utilized to produce other valuable chemicals or later used in fuel cells if they become more cost-efcient. Because of the high efciency drop in

Table 5 e Performance and cost of biomass energy conversion processes. BDCL

Capacity (MW) Net power generation efciency (% HHV) CO2 capture rate (% input Carbon basis) Capital costc ($ kW1) Non-fuel O&M costd ($ kW1 year1) Electricity coste (cents kWh1) 100 38.1a 99

The cost and performance of the BDCL process is summarized in Table 5 along with comparisons to an integrated biomass gasication combined cycle (IBGCC) system with and without CO2 capture. All three processes are scaled to 100 MW. The cost estimations for the IBGCC process are based off coal fed IGCC plants [83e85]. The power generation efciency of the BDCL process is based on ASPEN simulation [57] and the efciencies for the IGCC systems are obtained from the literature [86,87]. The preliminary cost estimates for the BDCL system are obtained from economic studies of biomass gasication processes [55,59]. The cost components considered include capital, operation and maintenance (O&M), and fuel costs. Capital cost was calculated using a scaling factor of 0.7 and O&M cost was estimated based on a percentage of the capital investment suggested by Peters et al. [88]. The cost of the biomass fuel was assumed to be 50 $ t1 on the dry mass basis [87]. The CO2 transportation and sequestration cost was estimated to be 10 $ t1-CO2 [86]. Conversely, by installing CO2 capture facility on the IBGCC process, the capital cost increased by 66% and power generation efciency decreased by 30% (HHV). The signicant increase in capital cost coupled with the severe energy penalty drives up the cost of electricity by 50% when 90% of the CO2 is captured from the biomass based IGCC process. Alternatively, the BDCL process achieves high power generation efciency (38.1% (HHV)) at relatively low costs. In addition, 99% of the carbon in biomass is readily captured from the BDCL process. The resulting cost of electricity from BDCL is roughly one half of that from the IBGCC without CO2 capture and a third of that with carbon capture. It should be noted that a cost of electricity at 95 $ MWh1 is still relatively expensive compared to 66 $ MWh1 of oxy-coalcombustion process with 97% CO2 capture [86]. However, the electricity cost falls to around 60 $ MWh1 when carbon credit is clamed at 20 $ t1. Furthermore, re-performing the economic analysis for optimum hydrogen production yielded a cost of around 15.3 $ GJ1 for hydrogen.

IBGCC
100 30b 0

IBGCC with C capture

100 21b 90

3.

Conclusion

1630 80 9.5

2190 150 18

3650 230 27

a base on ASPEN simulation of BDCL process, [55,57,59]. b Post-CO2 system by scrubber. c Assume a scaling factor of 0.7, 10% interest over 30 years, costs were converted to year 2000 USD. d Estimated based on a percentage of the capital investment [88]. e 10 USD for CO2 transportation cost and CO2 sequestration cost.

With regulations pressing for cleaner energy conversion processes, several technologies are being developed and employed. A rst step to reducing carbon emissions is increasing the efciencies of the current fossil fuel fed power plants. CCS techniques are also being developed to sequester the GHG before being emitted into the atmosphere. However, such methods require a certain amount of parasitic energy to purify the CO2 stream reducing the overall process efciency. Furthermore, with current energy conversion systems dependent on fossil fuels, a depleting resource, an alternative renewable resource is being sought. Biomass becomes a potential candidate for providing both CO2 concentration stabilization and reducing fossil fuel use. Several studies predict that biomass will contribute signicantly to the world energy demand in the near future. However, due to its relatively low energy density, high moisture content, and

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highly distributed-resource, this lignocellulosic material has proven to be less efcient and more cost intensive compared to the current fossil fuel processes. Therefore, a highly efcient process is required to penetrate the economic barrier of todays energy market to achieve commercialization of the biomass based energy. The conventional biomass thermo-chemical processes, such as direct combustion or gasication, have proven to be technically feasible. However, the power generation efciency is limited by the small scale facility making it difcult to compete against fossil fuel based energy. The BDCL process has the potential to compete against conventional energy generation systems via its high conversion efciency. This technology utilizes a metal oxide composite particle to react directly with the carbon based fuel in oxidation/reduction reaction scheme. The design of the process runs parallel with previous works with coal as the direct feedstock. Additionally, the BDCL does not require a signicant energy intensive step to capture the CO2 released because the carbon stream is separated from the other products via reaction path design. The net result is a carbon negative process. A preliminary economic analysis demonstrates that BDCL system integrated with CCS to receive carbon credit is capable of producing electricity at 60 $ MWh1, a competitive price to the current fossil fuel processes. However, it is still in the early stages of development. Several factors such as fuel particle size, moisture content, and tar issues have to be considered before a complete feasibility analysis can be performed.

[8]

[9] [10]

[11]

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[17] [18]

[19]

Acknowledgement
[20]

We would like to express our appreciation to Andrew Tong, Fanxing Li, Hyung Kim and Liang Zeng for their technical and editorial assistance during the preparation of this manuscript.

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