BC Pulp and Paper Bioproducts Alliance: Development and demonstration of forest residues to renewable natural gas technologies

This proposed project will support our ongoing efforts in scanning and screening existing technologies and de-bottlenecking key technology barriers in converting low-cost biomass residues to renewable natural gas in British Columbia pulp, paper and lumber mills. Specifically, we will focus on developing a bauxite residue (f.k.a., red mud) based catalyst for the removal of tar from gasification syngas to yield clean syngas for methanation to biomethane, and evaluating and improving the commercial methanation catalyst. Over the past 5 years, we have accumulated extensive experience in biomass gasification and catalytic conversion of syngas to liquid biofuels including higher alcohols and biodiesel. For the clean-up of syngas, we have developed a unique low-cost iron-based catalyst derived from bauxite residue, a waste from bauxite processing, which shows promising performance based on the tests in a bench scale fixed bed reactor using naphthalene as the simulated tar. In the proposed project we will team up with FPInnovations to develop an integrated biomass gasification and methanation process for the production of renewable natural gas using abundantly available forest residues in BC.

Faculty Supervisor:

Xiaotao Tony Bi;Kevin Smith;Naoko Ellis

Student:

Tingting Li;Haoqi Wang

Partner:

Discipline:

Engineering - chemical / biological

Sector:

Manufacturing

University:

University of British Columbia

Program: