In 2011, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), working as a partner in the National Advanced Biofuels Consortium, issued a report assessing the viable industrial feed system and pump options for a 2000 dry metric tons per day production-scale hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) plant (Berglin et al. 2012). This report was issued as PNNL-21981, Review and Assessment of Commercial Vendors/Options for Feeding and Pumping Biomass Slurries for Hydrothermal Liquefaction, and will be referred to as “Pump Survey” for reference. It had the following scope:
• Identify relevant applications and industries operating at comparable scales
• Interact with commercial vendors and pursue integration between vendors
• Take advantage of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) technology
• Supply and support vendor needs for biomass feedstock rheology characterization
• Provide vendors with process requirements to support selection of conceptual design for feedstock handing and pump system
• Obtain cost data to the extent possible from equipment vendors to support the technical economic analysis (TEA)
• Identify issues associated scale-up.
The current document represents an update to the prior report in order to:
1. Identify advancements in vendor-reported technologies
2. List reports of new experience or trials with biomass pumping applications
3. Determine if technology/application gaps identified in the prior report have been filled
4. Capture ideas on future research.
Revised: December 8, 2020 |
Published: July 17, 2020