A technical and economic evaluation of selected biomass-to-fuels conversion processes

Abstract

The major objective of this study was to determine the economic and technical feasibility of existing methods for producing readily useable fuel from biomass. A thorough literature search was undertaken in an effort to evaluate the most promising and advanced biomass conversion processes about which published information was available. A ranking method was then developed to compare the selected processes.

A major problem that was encountered was the lack of completeness in the reported data. This incompleteness indicated that there was a major need for essential design information concerning changes of biomass during storage and detailed process design and scale-up information, which simply were not available.

The most promising processes were found to be gasification and bioconversion types. The pyrolytic oil processes were less feasible by this ranking method.