IEA Bioenergy Task42 (Biorefining in the Circular Economy) aims to improve the commercialization and market development of biorefinery systems and associated technologies, taking into account environmental, social and economic aspects. Integrated assessment (technical, economic and environmental TEE assessment) of integrated biorefineries is carried out to provide quantitative, scientifically sound and understandable data on the technical, economic and environmental added value of biorefinery to co-produce bioenergy and bioproducts in a sustainable way . This report focuses on case studies for gasification-based biorefineries and was developed in collaboration with members of IEA Bioenergy Task 33 (Gasification of biomass and waste).
Gasification is not a new technology, but gasification of biomass (or waste) and all sub-sequent scaling up can be considered new. The different flue gas composition in particular is considered a challenge. The report analyzed 10 gasification technologies, ranging from commonly found two-stage gasification to more exotic technologies, including plasma, and assigned TRL levels accordingly. In principle, there are applications with high TRLs such as 7-8 for a wide range of raw materials, for example classic input materials such as wood chips, pellets, sawdust and perennial crops, but also for municipal solid waste, SRF and RDF with lower TRL technology. But not only the generation of heat, power and syngas (and their subsequent use for the production of biofuels and/or biochemicals) are important, several technologies are also working to recover minerals such as phosphorus to further improve efficiency. Factsheets were included for 4 specific gasification-based biorefinery systems, with the main difference being the way in which the synthesis gas is further processed into advanced biofuel.
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Source: Biobasedeconomy.nl
