NH Hospital Switches to Wood Based liquid Biofuel

[peakbagger]

http://www.memorialhospitalnh.org/n...o-ensyn-s-liquid-biofuel-for-facility-heating

http://www.ensyn.com/products/fuel-products/pyrolysis-heating-oil/

Its made out of waste wood. The current production plant is in Ontario but the ultimate plan is install production in New England.

Unfortunately, its a substitute for #4 oil and requires a separate storage tank, piping and burner so its a better fit for institutions. I don't see it impacting the home heating market but will give large pellet installations a competitor.

 

[begreen]

I wonder how they are going to market the huge amounts of biochar that I would expect an operation like this to produce?

 

[woodgeek]

They might burn it for process heat.

 

[peakbagger]

I believe that the char is used as a portion of the energy input to the process. The other supply of heat is the non condensable gases that are given off. The wood going into the process has to be quite dry so I expect any waste heat is used on the inlet end.

 

[renewablejohn]

I wonder how they are going to market the huge amounts of biochar that I would expect an operation like this to produce?

If it was me I would market as a direct renewable alternative to diesel which would entail mixing with a small quantity of oil seed **** so that the diesel engine would not need to be modified.

 

[begreen]

BioChar will be a by-product of this process. It's essentially charcoal. I'm wondering where they would sell that. BBQ market, soil enhancer?

 

[woodgeek]

Are you sure that the amount of heat required to make the pyrolysis oil does not consume all the biochar and pyrolysis gas energy? If so, it would make sense to burn up all the gas, and keep some of the solid for storage and sale, presumably as an addition to a coal plant feed?

 

[begreen]

Not from the systems I have looked at. But they are smaller scale. The gas and oils are captured and stored during the off-gassing stage. After that one has charcoal, but no syngas production. You could burn the charcoal if the heat is not wasted. But otherwise it would be better to sequester it and sell. That gets the system back into gas/oil production faster and provided as sellable by-product.
(broken link removed to http://www.ensyn.com/technology/process-yield-product-quality/)