The cost of improved quality feedstocks: How good is "good enough"?
Not all biomass is created equal, and the low quality of many sources of biomass precludes their use in many conversion processes. As we work to achieve the Billion Ton vision, more of these low quality biomass sources will need to be integrated into the feedstock supply chain and their quality issues must be dealt with to make them usable. Many of these feedstocks suffer from elevated concentrations of ash, which can interfere with thermochemical conversion reactions, catalysts, and conversion products. In this study, the cost of incremental reductions in ash concentrations was investigated in three potential biomass feedstocks: logging residues, corn stover, and construction and demolition waste. Air classification (AC) is a mechanical separations method that has been shown to concentrate ash into the lighter fractions, and ash content can be decreased by discarding these fractions. However, the cost of disposal and replacement of the discarded fraction make this strategy unaffordable (= $11.04 ton-1). Alternatively, the lightest AC fraction can be acid-leached to remove ash and recombined with the remainder of the sample. Using this approach, ash content can be decreased in logging residues from 1.1% to 0.83% for $1.95 ton-1. Ash concentrations could be further decreased with the combined strategy to 0.67% (a 40% reduction) for $3.88 per ton. This approach costs between $0.07 and $0.10 percent-1 ton-1 for the removal of up to 40% of the ash in the feedstock. This separate-treat-recombine method is an effective way to introduce lower quality feedstocks into the biomass feedstock supply chain.
- Research Organization:
- Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC07-05ID14517
- OSTI ID:
- 1499699
- Report Number(s):
- INL/CON-16-40628-Rev000
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 39th Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals, San Francisco, CA, 05/01/2017 - 05/04/2017
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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