Biorefineries
Fuel synthesis
There is increasing interest in using non-food crops from Short Rotation Coppicing, Short Rotation Forestry and arable crop by-products as feedstocks for fuel synthesis via thermochemical routes. Downstream of the relevant pyrolysis or gasification steps, there is expertise in improving catalyst selectivity for Fischer-Tropsch fuel synthesis. Work is underway with a number of other players to develop a full bio-refinery concept aimed at converting biomass into a range of possible synthetic fuels (eg advanced bio-diesel or bio-kerosene for aviation) or renewable chemical feedstocks – depending on market demand.
Professor Dermot Roddy from the Swan Centre is a member of the Advisory Board for the SUSTOIL consortium, working to develop advanced biorefinery schemes to convert whole EU oil-rich crops (rapeseed, olive and sunflower) into energy (fuels, power and heat), food and bioproducts (chemicals and/or materials) making optimal uses of the side streams generated during farming/harvesting, primary processing (e.g. oil extraction and refining) and secondary processing (e.g. transesterification). More information about SUSTOIL can be found at www.sustoil.org
