VTT of Finland Develops Efficient Small Scale Waste Biomass Fuel/Heat Gasification Method

VTT Technical Research Center of Finland has developed a new approach using gasification to turn biomass into intermediate products such as liquid hydrocarbons, methanol, and methane in production units that are designed to be integrated with thermal energy use in Scandinavian community heating or to create steam for use in forest industry power generation operations. 

• Approx. 55% of biomass is turned into transport fuels and 20-25% into thermal / steam in high efficiency reaction utilizing 3/4ths of energy potential.
• New technique reduces CO2 emissions by 90% compared to fossil fuels.
• Process is specifically designed to use forest industry byproducts as biomass input (bark, small branches,. sawdust, etc.)

The process is based on VTT's low-pressure, low-temperature steam gasification technology, simplified gas purification, and small-scale industrial synthesis. Due to its unique small-scale approach, heat generated by the process can be used throughout the year and the process can be fueled with local waste. 

Finland's previous plans have involved considerably larger gasification-based diesel plants of which the raw material demands could not have been satisfied with locally sourced waste. Furthermore it would be impossible to make full use of the by-product heat of the large plants (especially in warm months). Their energy efficiency would therefore have been less than 60% compared to the 75% in this new method. 

VTT believes that their new method will finally allow Europe to build their planned 300MW in gasification plants without the EUR 1 billion investment needed together with the risks associated with new technology on a large scale. The project team also believes that the production costs of making transport fuels from this process would amount to slightly less than one euro per liter and the new technology is set to become even more competitive as the costs of the raw materials for competing technologies increase. The process is expected to be highly competitive at least from the year 2030 onwards. 

In addition to transport fuels, this particular biomass gasification technique can be used to produce renewable raw materials to replace fossil needs in various chemical industry processes.