Suchergebnisse

Young Researchers' Abstracts 2014 ; Inside the European Union, the policy-driven demand for renewable fuels has opened up promising new opportunities for the valorization of forest biomass. This can be seen as one potential renewal pathway for the traditional forest industry. Diversification of the product portfolio to include more highly refined energy products, e.g. transportation fuels, is an approach that is already being pursued by some companies. Among the various conversion technologies, fast pyrolysis has been identified as a straightforward method for converting solid biomass into a liquid fuel, pyrolysis oil. However, due to its challenging physicochemical properties, pyrolysis oil requires upgrading before it can be used as a transportation fuel. The severity of the upgrading can be reduced by introducing a catalyst directly into the pyrolysis process. With this approach, which is known as catalytic fast pyrolysis (CFP), the primary biomass decomposition reactions are followed by secondary catalytic reactions taking place within the pyrolysis reactor. This results in a trade-off, where quality of the pyrolysis oil improves at the expense of the oil yield. Catalyst deactivation has been identified as a key parameter that affects the overall performance of the CFP process. This presentation will cover catalytic fast pyrolysis research that been carried out at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, with a special emphasis on catalyst deactivation. Various deactivation phenomena that have been observed in bench-scale experiments and in an extended pilot-scale experiment will be discussed. ; Marcus Wallenberg Prize Award Symposium 2014, 22 - 23 September 2014, Stockholm, Sweden

VTT Tiedotteita - Research Notes 2441 ; The study carried out within the Bioenergy Network of Excellence analyses the implementation of important EU directives and policies relating to bioenergy in Europe to identify major RD&D needs in the field. Major EU directives, commonly known as the Promotion of Renewable Electricity, Biofuels and Landfill Directives, along with the EU Emissions Trading Scheme and parts of the Common Agricultural Policy, are some of the most important drivers behind the growth of bioenergy in the EU27 today. The report compares how Germany, Finland and the Netherlands have implemented the directives, examining the policy frameworks in each country and the plans and mechanisms in place to reach national targets. A wider European perspective for each directive is then drawn out, and recommendations for RD&D actions to meet the EU directive targets or obligations in each area are outlined. The report also takes a broader look at the effects the EU Emissions Trading Scheme and the Common Agricultural Policy are having on the use of biomass in the EU with RD&D recommendations for each area. Bioenergy NoE advocates stronger communication and co-operation among various EU-wide projects and initiatives focusing on bioenergy development. Industry commitment to RD&D projects is, however, the only direct path for bringing state-of-the-art technology and products to market. Building sustainable production pathways and addressing competition with food products is crucial to developing environmentally-sound biofuels. Research in renewable electricity from biomass should prioritize development of higher efficiency power production and power-to-heat ratios in combined heat and power plants over new technology development. In the biofuels field, RD&D should prioritize the development of more sustainable, second generation biofuels. To meet landfill diversion targets, thermal conversion and energy recovery of municipal solid waste in some EU countries will have to increase. Meeting the European targets set for 2020 requires significant technology development in order to introduce a new generation of biofuels and feedstocks: this is the focus for Bioenergy NoE RD&D.