Development of a process for furfural production in an Integrated Forest Biorefinery

An integrated biorefinery for furfural production is an opportunity for Kraft pulp mills to create value from hemicellulose, a class of wood component that is currently burnt for energy. Furfural is one of the top bio-products with the potential to replace many industrial organic compounds that are currently produced from crude oil revenue. The objective of this work is to develop an optimized biorefinery process that can be best integrated into a Kraft pulp mill. The approach taken consists of two stages: (I) conceptual design of a process using process simulation (II) the experimental validation of its process steps. The second stage is the objective of this internship. The experimentally validated process simulation will be used to develop and propose a biorefinery implementation strategy that will have a minimal effect on the energy and material balance of the host mill. Lastly, the validated process design can be used as a process development and improvement tool by the industrial partners.

Faculty Supervisor:

Dr. Jean Paris

Student:

Olumoye Ajao

Partner:

FPInnovations

Discipline:

Engineering - chemical / biological

Sector:

Energy

University:

Polytechnique Montréal