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Journal article
Life-Cycle Assessment of Alternative Pyrolysis-Based Transport Fuels: Implications of Upgrading Technology, Scale, and Hydrogen Requirement
ACS sustainable chemistry & engineering, v 6(8), pp 10001-10010
01 Aug 2018
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Bio-oil produced from fast pyrolysis of biomass is a promising substitute for crude oil that can meet climate change mitigation goals, but due to its high oxygen content, it requires upgrading to remove oxygen in order to be used as a transportation fuel. Hydrodeoxygenation (HDO) is one means of upgrading fast pyrolysis oil; however, its main limitation is its large hydrogen requirement. We evaluate an alternative electrochemical deoxygenation (EDOx) method that uses catalytic electrode membranes on a ceramic, oxygen-permeable support to generate hydrogen in situ for deoxygenation at the cathode and oxygen removal at the anode. We analyze the life-cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and scale effects of gas-phase upgrading of pyrolysis oil [300 t/day (MTPD)] using different configurations of EDOx and compare it with the large-scale HDO process (2000 MTPD). We observe that the EDOx configurations have lower total GHG emissions of 5-8.4 and 7.4-11 g of CO2 equiv/MJ for vehicles operated with diesel and gasoline, respectively, compared to HDO (39 g of CO2 equiv/MJ). Furthermore, the EDOx processes offers potentially 10 times more small-scale pyrolysis upgrading facilities in the United States compared to HDO, suggesting that small-scale on-site EDOx processes can reach more inaccessible forest biomass resources.
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Details
- Title
- Life-Cycle Assessment of Alternative Pyrolysis-Based Transport Fuels: Implications of Upgrading Technology, Scale, and Hydrogen Requirement
- Creators
- Yetunde Sorunmu - Drexel UniversityPieter Billen - University of AntwerpS. Elango Elangovan - Ceramatec, Inc., 2425 South 900 West, Salt Lake City, Utah 84119, United StatesDaniel Santosa - Pacific Northwest National LaboratorySabrina Spatari - Drexel UniversityPacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Publication Details
- ACS sustainable chemistry & engineering, v 6(8), pp 10001-10010
- Publisher
- American Chemical Society; Washington, DC
- Number of pages
- 19
- Grant note
- DE-EE0006288 / U.S. Department of Energy (DOE-EERE) under the Carbon, Hydrogen and Separation Efficiencies in Bio-Oil Conversion Pathways (CHASE Bio-Oil Pathways) program
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000441475500054
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-85049257020
- Other Identifier
- 991019167796404721
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- Collaboration types
- Industry collaboration
- Domestic collaboration
- International collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
- Engineering, Chemical
- Green & Sustainable Science & Technology