Flash pyrolysis of biomass yields a liquid applicable as a fuel oil substitute and as a basis for production of chemicals and fuels. Biomass, being a renewable resource, is foreseen to be in increasing demand. An increased usage may lead to scarcity of biomass and emphasizes the need for high-efficiency conversion processes. In this study, the efficiency and capacity aspects of an integration of pyrolysis oil production with a district heating plant by means of dual fluidized-bed technology has been modeled. Further, fractional condensation of the pyrolysis vapors has been applied, enabling part of the condensation energy to be recovered. The concept shows potential for significant pyrolysis oil production while keeping the delivered power and heat constant. The use of excess heat from the pyrolysis production in the district heating net results in a 10% higher overall efficiency than production without heat supply to the district heating net.

Large amounts of thermal energy are required for different unit operations in the pulp and paper industry. Typically, this energy is distributed by means of steam. In this study, introduction of in-situ-generated syngas as an energy carrier in parallel to the predominant steam has been investigated. The examined systems use dual fluidized-bed gasification integrated with a solid fuel boiler of a paper mill together with impingement drying in combination with cylinder drying, a concept enabling higher specific drying rates. The studied systems exhibit reduced overall energy use when compared to the present situation with conventional steam-heated cylinder drying. Cold tar cleaning by condensation/absorption and firing of the syngas in a gas turbine followed by utilization of the exhaust gases for drying are interesting options because this results in reduced biomass consumption with maintained power production.

Betulin from birch bark was extracted using two principally different extraction methodologies - classical Reflux Boiling (RB) and Pressurized Liquid Extraction (PLE). The extraction methods were analyzed based on both recovery and purity as well as for RB industrial feasibility. The purity and recovery for the different extraction methods were analyzed using High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) coupled with three different detection principles: Diode Array Detection (DAD), Mass Spectrometry (MS) and Charged Aerosol Detection (CAD). The chromatographic purity was determined by all detections whereas the DAD was used also for complementary gravimetric calculations of the purity of the extracts. The MS detection (in MS and MS/MS modes) was mainly used to characterize the impurities. Two steps to increase the purity of RB extracts were evaluated - pre-boiling the bark in water and precipitation by adding water to the extract. Finally, the methods were compared in terms of amounts of betulin produced and solvent consumed. The RB method including a precipitation step produced the highest purity of betulin. However, results indicate that PLE using three cycles with the precipitation step gives similar purities as for RB. The PLE method produced up to 1.6 times higher amount of extract compared to the RB method. However, the solvent consumption (liter solvent per gram product) for PLE was around 4.5 times higher as compared to the classical RB. PLE performed with only one extraction cycle gave results more similar to RB with 1.2 times higher yield and 1.4 times higher solvent consumption. The RB process was investigated on an industrial scale using a model approach and several important key-factors could be identified. The most energy demanding step was the recycling of extraction solvent which motivates that solvent consumption should be kept low and calculations show a great putative energy reduction by decreasing the ethanol concentration used in the RB process to lower than 90%.

Solid fuel fired fluidized bed (FB) boilers are common in combined heat and power (CHP) plants in district heating- and process industry. In this study, utilization of such FB boilers for production of syngas in dual fluidized bed gasifiers and subsequent catalytic biofuel production to substitute natural gas (SNG), methanol (MeOH) and Fischer-Tropsch fuel (FT) has been examined. Based on the hypothesis that waste-heat and tail gas from the biofuel processes can be utilized in the CHP plant, process configurations aiming for operationally robustness and low investment cost rather than maximum stand-alone efficiency have been explored and implemented in actual industrial cases and over the full operating range of the boilers. The results of the study show that significant improvements of overall efficiency can be achieved by integration of the biofuel processes in the CHP plants and that a relatively high biofuel production capacity can be achieved. SNG showed the highest obtainable efficiency and production capacity of the studied biofuels, whereas the FT process showed largest increase in terms of efficiency when integrated in the CHP plant, compared to its stand-alone efficiency.