© CSIR 2010Slide 1 The Biorefinery Concept – a Review Bruce Sithole 7 October 2010

© CSIR 2010Slide 2 Outline of presentation Problems facing the industry Definition of biorefinery The Integrated Forest Products Biorefinery Focus areas of Agenda 2020 The challenge of deployment Extracting value prior to pulping New value from spent pulping liquors Biodiesel from tall oil Examples of energy production

© CSIR 2010Slide 3 What is the problem? Pressures on the pulp and paper industry Disruptive technologies Competition from Asia and South America No greenfield mills in north America for 20 years Greenhouse gas emissions

© CSIR 2010Slide 4 What is the problem? RankDisruptive technology 1News on the internet 2Tablet computing 3Internet shopping 4Electronic books and papers 5Functional coatings 6Digital archiving 7On-demand printing 8Text messaging 9Air-laid papermaking 10Cellulosic bioenergy Disruptive technologies

© CSIR 2010Slide 5 Solution Can new technology revitalize the pulp and paper industry and, at the same time, help nations solve their energy problems? The biorefinery concept is supposed to do that.

© CSIR 2010Slide 6 Definition Biorefinery a facility that integrates biomass conversion processes and equipment to produce fuels, power, and chemicals from biomass analogous to today's petroleum refineries, which produce multiple fuels and products from petroleum identified as the most promising route to the creation of a new domestic biobased industry

© CSIR 2010Slide 7 Current mill

© CSIR 2010Slide 8 Forest biorefinery

© CSIR 2010Slide 9 The Integrated Forest Products Biorefinery Yield from kraft pulping is 50% Very low rate that needs to be changed IFBR accomplishes this while protecting the ability to produce the core products of the traditional facility, but also providing an ability to enhance their production.

© CSIR 2010Slide 10 The Integrated Forest Products Biorefinery Arguments to supported this: Existing manufacturing facilities geared to collecting and processing biomass Too much wealth used to purchase energy Using a CO 2 neutral system for fuels and chemicals is good, cheap insurance. Movement towards renewable energy system needed to avoid major societal dislocations in the future With growing budget deficits, pressure to spend large quantities of money to improve the health of public forest, fight massive fires, and transfer more wealth to rural populations.

© CSIR 2010Slide 11 The Integrated Forest Products Biorefinery Example from 2001 US pulp production: total chemical pulp production 53 million tons raw material 120 million dry tons of wood 6 million tons of wood converted into paper products by mechanical or thermomechanical means 120 chemical pulp mills Many modern kraft mills have an energy surplus – hence have existing foundations for IFBR No need to build greenfield mills

© CSIR 2010Slide 12 The Integrated Forest Products Biorefinery Manufacturing value-added products from greatly underutilised raw material, could significantly improve the return on invested capital at the facilities By improving the efficacy of utilising raw materials, the industry could protect its traditional product lines IFBR would protect the core business of the pulp and paper industry by making the entire base more profitable Advantages

© CSIR 2010Slide 13 The Integrated Forest Products Biorefinery Manufacturing value-added products from greatly underutilised raw material, could significantly improve the return on invested capital at the facilities By improving the efficacy of utilising raw materials, the industry could protect its traditional product lines IFBR would protect the core business of the pulp and paper industry by making the entire base more profitable Preliminary estimates showed promising economics

© CSIR 2010Slide 14 Current mill net revenue from traditional product, pulp = $5.5 billion

© CSIR 2010Slide 15 Forest biorefinery new value streams created with biorefineries

© CSIR 2010Slide 16 Forest biorefinery potential net revenue

© CSIR 2010Slide 17 Forest biorefinery Before pulping: Hemicelluloses extracted Converted to chemicals like ethanol and acetic acid = $3 billion additional revenue After pulping and the residual pulping liquors gasified, Syngas gas turned into power, liquid fuels and/or chemicals Conversion to power = $3 billion additional Conversion to transportation fuels = $5 billion more Pathway choice will be driven by economics of circumstances and/or location

© CSIR 2010Slide 18 Agenda 2020 Formulated and organised the “Forest Biorefinery” research and development efforts into three focus areas: Sustainable Forest Productivity Extracting Value Prior to Pulping New Value Streams from Residuals and Spent Pulping Liquors

© CSIR 2010Slide 19 Agenda 2020 Sustainable Forest Productivity: Application of biotechnology to sustainable forestry that will allow the management of US forestland at a high intensity on fewer acres. A key focus is developing fast growing biomass plantations specifically for the production of economic, high quality feedstocks for bioenergy and biomaterial end uses

© CSIR 2010Slide 20 Agenda 2020 Extracting Value Prior to Pulping: Addresses the opportunities from the time the wood is chipped at the mill but before it is pulped in the digester A key focus is hemicelluloses extraction from wood chips prior to pulping followed by their utilization as biomaterial feedstock and/or pulp additive

© CSIR 2010Slide 21 Agenda 2020 New Value Streams from Residuals and Spent Pulping Liquors: Addresses opportunities to manufacture bio-products after the pulp digester. A key focus is conversion of biomass, including forest residues and spent pulping liquor (black liquor) into syngas through gasification technologies. The syngas is then converted into liquid fuels, power, chemicals, and other high-value materials

© CSIR 2010Slide 22 Forest Biorefinery Creates a diverse group of potential processes and products: New ProcessesNew Products Sustainable forest productivityNew/better/lower cost feedstocks Wood extractionHemicelluloses, sugars, oils, resins, etc Wood extract conversion Ethanol, acetic acid, polymers, etc Wood pyrolysis Resins, wood composites, carbon products Wood/black liquor gasificationSyngas Gas conditioning Approach tailored to end products Gas conversionElectric power, renewable transportation fuels, methanol, dimethyl ether, hydrogen

© CSIR 2010Slide 23 The Challenge of Deployment Sustainable land use: Complex task that requires gaining public and legislative approvals for: land use, faster growing trees, forest thinning, and the type and amount of materials to be left on the forest floor after harvesting Important commercial issues include more economical transportation to allow a larger harvest radius, and determining how increased value will be shared between land owners, harvesters and users

© CSIR 2010Slide 24 The Challenge of Deployment Energy Reduction: Significant reductions in energy use are necessary prerequisites in progressing towards biorefineries. Less energy that is used for the process means more energy is available to “export”. A study in the USA showed that the average US pulp and paper mill uses over 20 million BTUs per ton. This could be reduced to 15 million BTUs per ton using the best available technology

© CSIR 2010Slide 25 The Challenge of Deployment Collection of all sustainable residuals for use in an adjacent biorefinery: Implement an adjacent biorefinery which will have its own process and not interfere with current “fibre line” operations use The residual biomass can be as much as 15% for softwoods and 35% for hardwoods plus additional biomass from thinnings if the mill is close to managed forests

© CSIR 2010Slide 26 The Challenge of Deployment Extracting value prior to pulping: Shorter chain hemicelluloses extracted with a mild cook of water prior to pulping in a way that preserves or enhances pulp properties Kraft pulping energy and bleaching chemicals can be reduced as the chips will cook and bleach faster Less pulping damage will occur and will compensate for some or all of the strength loss in water extraction.

© CSIR 2010Slide 27 The Challenge of Deployment New value from spent pulping liquors: Objective is to replace older Tomlinson chemical recovery furnaces with modern black liquor gasifiers. There are two reasons for wanting to do this: 1.To increase thermal efficiency from 30 to 40% for an older Tomlinson, to 50 to 60% for a gasifier. This is a huge gain in usable output. 2.To replace steam from a Tomlinson with syngas from a gasifier The syngas can be burned in a conventional boiler to make steam as needed Can also be converted to ethanol, diesel, dimethyl ether or value added chemicals

© CSIR 2010Slide 28 The Challenge of Deployment Biodiesel from tall oil: Many pulp mills have tall oil recovery systems and sell the tall oil for conversion into multiple products When the market value of tall oil is close to its BTU value there is no incentive to change The economics are dependent on the differential between tall oil and diesel.

© CSIR 2010Slide 29 Progress Positively impacting the environment: Options for communicating the industry’s environmental performance are being considered Increasing fibre yield: Several options were examined and it was concluded that the best opportunity for increasing fibre yield was borate autocausticizing, a novel approach that offers the possibility of capital equipment elimination, energy savings, and yield improvement.

© CSIR 2010Slide 30 Progress Reducing the complexity of drying : Paper dewatering is an obstacle to energy self- sufficiency. It is also expensive to ship water in the paper Better understanding of sheet dewatering can increase press solids by 10%

© CSIR 2010Slide 31 Progress Retaining and improving fibre functionality: Novel calcium and silica-based fillers can increase filler levels, lower basis weights and reduce costs while maintaining or improving quality The technology may lower production costs by US$50 per ton of paper while maintaining physical properties, brightness, opacity, strength, and bulk, and allowing basis weight reduction

© CSIR 2010Slide 32 Progress Sustainable forest productivity: Clonal softwood forestry is considered key for keeping the North American industry globally competitive

© CSIR 2010Slide 33 Progress Extracting value prior to pulping: A number of mills are exploring this option Flambeau River Biofuels plans to engineer and construct one of the largest “green diesel” plants in the United States at an existing pulp and paper mill in Park Falls, Wisconsin The plant will convert 1,000 dry tons per day of woody biomass from bark, sawdust, wood and forest residue into green electrical power, steam and heat to the adjacent Flambeau River Papers plant and green diesel fuel and wax to the domestic market.

© CSIR 2010Slide 34 Progress Extracting value prior to pulping: A number of mills are exploring this option Canada has the first hardwood prehydrolysis kraft mill that is targeted to produce 600 tonnes/d of dissolving pulp If the hemicellulose stream can be off-loaded from the recovery system, production of dissolving pulp can be increased from 600 to 800 tonnes/d The mill should be able to generate new revenue from value-added chemicals in the prehydrolyzate stream

© CSIR 2010Slide 35 Progress Creating new value streams from residuals and spent pulping liquors: Targeted to production of renewable transportation fuels from forest products industry residuals The Fischer Tropsch (FT) synthesis was selected as a case study to illustrate the overall economics. Several gasifier pilot runs have been demonstrated in Sweden and the USA A TRI black liquor gasifier has been supporting the entire Norampac mill in Trenton, Ontario, Canada since The syngas is burned in the boiler to make steam for the mill

© CSIR 2010Slide 36 Enerkem: Methanol Synthesis

© CSIR 2010Slide 37 Nexterra Gasification Technology

© CSIR 2010Slide 38 Thermal Heat –> 100 MMBtu/hr

© CSIR 2010Slide 39 Cogen – Up to 10 Mw Electricity

© CSIR 2010Slide 40 Black Liquor Gasification

© CSIR 2010Slide 41 The Biorefinery

© CSIR 2010Slide 42 Pyrolysis Extracts/Byproducts

© CSIR 2010Slide 43 Progress Nanotechnology: Research is being conducted on various aspects of nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC) NCC increases the strength and stiffness of materials it’s added to Just a small amount can increase resistance to stress threefold, making it attractive as a high-performance reinforcing material Because NCC is affected by magnetic and electrical fields, it could prove useful as a filler in magnetic paper, electronic memory cards and readers, and other electronic products

© CSIR 2010Slide 44 Nanotechnology Demonstration plant in Canada will produce a tonne of nanocrystalline cellulose a day

© CSIR 2010Slide 45 The Biorefinery A viable and real concept!

© CSIR 2010Slide 46 Thank You