Fuel Processing Technology 92 (2011) 21692184

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Fuel Processing Technology

j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s ev i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / f u p r o c

Techno-economic assessment of gasication as a process step within biomass-to-liquid (BtL) fuel and chemicals production
Frederik Trippe a,, Magnus Frhling a, Frank Schultmann a, Ralph Stahl b, Edmund Henrich b
a b

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Institute for Industrial Production (IIP), Hertzstr. 16, D-76187 Karlsruhe, Germany Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Institute of Catalysis Research and Technology (IKFT), Hermann-von-Helmholtz-Platz 1, D-76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany

a r t i c l e

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
This study investigates the gasication process step which converts a biomass derived intermediate called slurry into synthesis gas (syngas) for subsequent synthesis of fuel and chemicals. The slurry is produced by fast pyrolysis plants and is then processed in a pressurized entrained ow gasier. The resulting syngas has to be conditioned and cleaned before it is converted in a FischerTropsch or dimethyl ether synthesis in order to complete a biomass-to-liquid (BtL) production such as the considered bioliq concept. This two-stage concept allows the economic transportation of biomass over long distances, due to the relatively high energy density of the slurry produced in the rst stage. In addition, reductions in specic investments and costs for further processing in the second stage are enabled by economies of scale. This paper addresses possibilities for further process development and presents an outlook for a commercial implementation of a biomass derived slurry gasication. Within the techno-economic assessment, different process congurations for the gasication facility are analysed using an Aspen Plus process model and compared from an economic and energetic point of view. The varying process parameters are operating pressure, gasication agent, syngas composition as well as feedstock composition. The techno-economic assessment concludes that it is possible to produce syngas at costs of about 23 -Cent/Nm 3 based only on biomass feedstock. The production costs can almost be cut by half when considering co-gasication of biomass and coal. Further higher operating pressures of the gasication process are identied as a major inuence on production costs reduction. The potential effects of marketing by-products such as excess heat as well as excess nitrogen are also addresses in this study. 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Article history: Received 1 June 2011 Accepted 29 June 2011 Available online 26 July 2011 Keywords: Pressurized entrained ow gasication Syngas Biomass-to-liquid Techno-economic assessment Process simulation 2nd generation biomass utilization

1. Background To prevent a shortage of depletable fossil energy carriers and subsequent problems in the world economy, political efforts are made all over the world to enforce a shift towards renewable energy carriers. Especially biomass is believed to reduce fossil CO2-emissions, to replace non-renewable carbon resources in numerous applications, to enhance energy security by reducing import dependencies and to promote regional development as well as diversication by creating jobs and income in rural areas [1]. Hence the EU for instance enforces the use of biomass derived transportation fuels by setting a share of 10% of biofuels for 2020 [2]. As a result of oil price uctuations, coal and gas can already be economically converted into synthetic fuels. At this time synthetic fuels are commercially produced at capacities of several million tons per year in coal-to-liquid (CtL) and gas-to-liquid (GtL) plants by Sasol [3] and SHELL [4]. CtL and GtL technologies are based on synthesis gas

Corresponding author. Tel.: + 49 721 60844444; fax: +49 721 60844682. E-mail address: frederik.trippe@kit.edu (F. Trippe). 0378-3820/$ see front matter 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.fuproc.2011.06.026

(syngas) as an intermediate which can be further converted to methanol, dimethyl ether (DME), methane (SNG), diesel, gasoline and other chemical products. A similar technology is applied in the biomass-to-liquid (BtL) fuel and chemicals production considered in this study using biomass as primary feedstock. In comparison to other biofuels, these fuels allow the same handling as conventional fuels at a higher quality due to the lack of sulfur and the tailored properties for more efcient usage in combustion engines. To use biomass as an input, the CtL and GtL processes need some modications at the front end of the process chain. The tail end steps after the generation of clean syngas with a dened ratio of hydrogen (H2) to carbon monoxide (CO) are identical for all biomass, coal or gas to liquid processes and are already implemented at commercial scale. Since complex technology is applied in a gasication and synthesis plant, economies of scale have to be realized to limit production costs. This in turn requires biomass to be transported from large distances to a centralized facility, which is only economical if the biomass' energy density is increased by pre-treatment and efcient transportation infrastructure is available. Accompanying the technological development of the BtL concept, economic estimates for investment requirements and production costs are carried out in order to nd technologically and economically favorable congurations. At least in mid-term, fossil

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pathways such as GtL and CtL set the benchmark for BtL technology. This benchmark is applied to derive conclusions for the further development and the implementation perspectives of the considered BtL technology. This study investigates the gasication of biomass derived slurries in an industrial scale entrained ow gasier. For this reason, studies conducted by the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) [5,6] and National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) [7] of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) as well as technical reports from the Tampa Electric Plok Power Station [8] and Taylorville Energy Center [9] that investigate gasication processes considering similar gasication capacities for Internal Gasication Combined Cycle (IGCC) processes have been evaluated and used for collecting investment data for the considered BtL concept. The nal product considered in this study is dry syngas with an adjusted H2:CO ratio. The aim is to determine the inuence of alternative gasication process congurations on syngas production cost. Since the realization of a BtL fuel and chemicals production concept based only on biomass is most likely to be a step-by-step implementation of facilities, this study investigates co-feeding of biomass and coal slurry as mid-term development scenario in a transition towards fully biomass based BtL production. The aim is to identify promising congurations for a mid-term implementation of the gasication facility and to determine the key factors which inuence the competitiveness of biomass as an alternative feedstock for CtL and GtL technologies. The study is structured as follows: After a short introduction to BtL fuel and chemicals production, the considered gasication facility and process variations are presented. Following the technical specication, the methodology is described. A thermodynamic process simulation model is developed using the commercial software Aspen Plus and applied to determine mass and energy balances for the gasication process congurations. The economic assessment uses the mass and energy balances to determine the characteristic equipment dimensions needed for investment estimations which serve as a basis for the further production costs estimation. Finally, the results are presented and discussed in order to outline the contribution and conclusion of this study.

approach. The rst stage consists of multiple decentralized pyrolysis plants to liquefy the biomass collected from a radius of about 30 km around each pyrolysis plant. The produced slurry offers a tenfold increased volumetric energy density and allows economical transportation over long distances to the centralized large scale gasication and synthesis plant [11]. For economic reasons, the capacity of the gasication and synthesis plant should be as large as possible in order to produce more efciently and cost-effectively [12]. After cleaning and conditioning, the syngas can be used to synthesize fuels or chemicals by different pathways. Under discussion are e.g. Fisher Tropsch synthesis to diesel, gasoline and waxes, dimethyl ether or methanol synthesis. The rst steps of a BtL process chain are crucial for the competitiveness. While the tail-end steps do not differ to a large extent between XtL technologies, the starting steps need to consider the biomass characteristics in the production of syngas of a specied quality. In an earlier study the authors assessed the pyrolysis step. Therefore the focus of this contribution is the assessment of the gasication of slurry produced in fast pyrolysis plants as a process step in BtL fuel and chemicals production as presented in Fig. 1. 2. Process description Syngas plays an important role as an intermediate product in the conversion of biomass into products such as fuel, chemicals, electricity or heat. It can be produced via thermo-chemical processes such as the gasication of carbonic feedstock. Using respective catalysts, a wide variety of different fuels and chemicals can be derived from the syngas. The investigations in this study are especially focussing on the gasication step within BtL fuel and chemicals production. For this purpose, syngas is dened as the nal product within this study. This chapter outlines the gasication process investigated in this study. First an introduction to gasication fundamentals and entrained ow gasication is presented. Following, the gasication process and entrained ow gasier applied in the bioliq concept is described and compared to alternative commercial entrained ow gasiers. Finally, the upstream and downstream processing units considered in this study are detailed. 2.1. Gasication fundamentals During gasication, the feedstock undergoes a range of processes that are partly exothermic and partly endothermic. In total, gasication is an endothermic process which means thermal energy has to be provided to keep the process running. Gasication processes can be distinguished by the way the required heat is provided. On the one hand, there are autothermal gasication processes which generate the heat by

1.1. Bioliq a BtL fuel and chemicals production concept The bioliq concept, which is currently being developed at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) [10], allows the conversion of low-grade lignocellulosic biomass such as residual wood or straw to synthetic fuels and other organic chemicals. Due to the low energy density based on volume, the transportation of biomass is limited to short distances. Therefore, the bioliq concept offers a two-stage

Central gasification and synthesis plant

Biomass

Slurry

Entrained flow Raw syngas gasification

Gas cleaning

Syngas

Synthesis

Fuel & chemicals

Focus of this study

Multiple decentralized pyrolysis plants

Fig. 1. Overview of the bioliq concept.

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partial combustion of the carbonic feedstock. On the other hand, there are allothermal processes where the heat is indirectly provided, for example via a heat carrier. Regardless of the specic gasication process, a particle of the feedstock undergoes the same sub-processes. These are drying, pyrolytic decomposition, oxidation and reduction. During the rst sub-process of drying, the particles are heated up to 200 C and simultaneously the present water is evaporated. Above this temperature level, the thermal or pyrolytic decomposition sets in. Up to a temperature of about 500 C volatiles, which make up about 80% on a mass basis (%m), are released and the remaining solids are char and ash. During the oxidation, part of the intermediate products reacts with oxygen to form CO and CO2. These reactions are highly exothermic, generate temperature levels of up to 2000 C and provide the required heat for the gasication process. During the nal sub-process, reduction reactions are initiated at temperatures between 800 C and 1100 C. These reactions produce in large parts the desired components of the product gas, i.e. H2 and CO, by reducing CO2 and H2O. Since both of the reduction reactions are endothermic, the production yield of H2 und CO can be improved by increasing the temperature level of the gasication process. Considering the operating pressure of the gasication process, lowering the pressure promotes the building of H2 and CO since solid char is converted to gaseous products during the reduction. There are no universally valid optimum conditions for any gasication process. The temperature level and the operating pressure have to be adapted to the respective feedstock, the gasication technology and the synthesis step that are applied [13]. 2.2. Entrained ow gasication Regarding the gasication technology, three major reactor designs for commercial applications of gasication have to be distinguished,

xed bed, uidised bed and entrained ow gasiers [14]. The differences between the reactor designs relate to the uid dynamic properties of the feedstock particles inside the reaction zone of the gasier. In this study, entrained ow gasication will be closely investigated since it allows for largest capacities among these design concepts. In most applications, the feedstock is pre-processed to socalled slurry, a suspension with a relatively high water content of up to 30%. This slurry has to be pumpable and pneumatically to atomize. The slurry feed is injected in co-current with the gasication agent into the reaction zone of the gasier. Mostly oxygen and/or steam are used as gasication agents resulting in high temperature levels between 1200 and 2000 C. High temperatures in the reaction zone guarantee high carbon conversion rates even at short residence times. Further, elevated operation pressure is favorable for high capacities. An important advantage of entrained ow gasication is the low tar content in the product gas due to the high temperature levels. This simplies gas cleaning and increases efciency. Another unique feature offered by entrained ow gasication is the molten ash that settles on the reactor walls, ows downwards and thereby forms a protective layer. Due to corrosion effects caused by the slag and the water contained in the slurry feed, entrained ow gasiers have very high material constraints. In comparison to xed or uidised bed reactors, the entrained ow gasier affords sophisticated installation engineering which is highly capital intensive and calls for economies of scale to limit the production costs of the desired output. Using biomass feedstock, capacities of up to 130 MWth have already been realized [15]. Regarding coal gasication, even capacities of about 1000 MWth are in the construction stage [16]. This capacity will also be applied in a large scale gasication and synthesis facility for fuel and chemicals production and is therefore closely investigated in the following chapter.

Fig. 2. Flowchart of the considered gasication facility.

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2.3. Gasication within the bioliq concept Fig. 2 gives an overview on the gasication process that is investigated in this study. The product gas accruing from the gasication of carbonic feedstock such as slurry or coal consists mostly of CO, H2, steam (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and higher hydro carbons as well as several kinds of impurities. For the product gas to be called syngas in this study, two upgrading steps are considered. The rst one is to adapt the ratio of H2 to CO according to the respective synthesis conditions. The DME synthesis for example requires an H2:CO ratio of about 1:1, the FischerTropsch (FT) synthesis requires a ratio of about 2:1 [17]. The second upgrading step that is covered in this study is drying the adjusted product gas by removing the H2O from the product gas. The dry and H2 to CO adjusted product gas is the nal product ow of the investigations conducted in this study and is called syngas. In order to produce fuel or chemicals from this syngas via DME or FT synthesis, further upgrading and conditioning has to be completed. This includes the removal of impurities such as particulate matter down to ppm levels as well as the isolation of the H2 and CO components of the syngas ow, which is not covered in this investigation. The most promising technology for large scale applications of gasication in fuel and chemicals production from biomass or other carbonic feedstock is entrained ow gasication. One purpose of this study is to evaluate available commercial solutions for gasier capacities of about 1 GWth input. At rst the currently offered SFG1200 gasier from Siemens Fuel Gasication Technology GmbH [18] will be assessed. Afterwards this technology will be compared to gasiers from Shell, General Electric and ConocoPhilips [59,19]. All these suppliers already have commercial applications with gasier capacities of 500 MWth coal input. Fig. 3 illustrates a pressurized entrained ow gasier. The upper part contains the actual gasication zone where the thermo-chemical decomposition takes place. The lower part shows the quench zone where the product gas as well as the slag is cooled down after leaving the reaction zone. The gasication zone is surrounded by a cooling screen whose spiral shaped pipes are own through by cooling water. Once the gasier is in operation, the pipes of the cooling screen will be covered with a slag lm that is built up by molten ash of the slurry feed. As shown in Fig. 4, the slag covering the pipes is solid. The liquid slag only comes into contact with the solid slag which reduces the corrosion stress for the cooling pipes. This particular design of the cooling screen allows long interruption-free operating cycles. Compared to conventional refractory walls, the cooling screen with a slag cover is more tolerant against varying feedstock, ash compositions and temperature differences. The gasication agents used to convert the slurry feed are oxygen or a combination of oxygen and steam. High operating pressure levels between 40 and 80 bar are advantageous for succeeding conversion steps downstream of the gasier since potential recompression of the product gas is redundant. The gasication reactions take place at temperature levels around 1200 C. This temperature ensures the melting of the minerals, prohibits the formation of tar and allows carbon conversion rates of over 99%. The product gas of entrained ow gasiers consists mainly of CO, H2 as well as CO2 and H2O. CH4 and the total amount of higher hydro carbons in the product gas are far below 1%. Typical impurities that occur are hydrogen sulde (H2S), carbonyl sulde (COS), hydrochloric acid (HCl), ammonia (NH3) as well as hydrogen cyanide (HCN). These have to be removed from the product gas ow to avoid poisoning of highly selective synthesis catalysts. The slag that slides down the inner reactor wall drops out of the reaction zone and solidies in the quench zone. The solid slag is collected and continuously discharged at the bottom of the pressure vessel. Depending on the composition of the granulated slag, it can be used as a construction material or even as a fertilizer [21]. Inside the quench zone, the product gas is cooled down by injecting water to a

Fig. 3. Schematic description of an entrained ow gasier (adapted from [20]).

temperature between 220 and 250 C depending on the operating pressure. Quenching the product gas offers two advantages. At rst, the product gas is cleaned from impurities, such as ash, salt or soot particles. Second, due to the additional ow from the evaporated quench water, the product gas is saturated and no further steam has to be generated for an optionally following watergas-shift reaction to

Cooling screen pipes

Liquid slag

Solid slag

Cooling water

Fig. 4. Schematic close-up of the cooling screen surrounding the gasication zone (adapted from [20]).

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adjust the ratio of H2 to CO. On the other hand, the extensive cooling of the product gas brings drawbacks for the thermal efciency of the process with it. The optimum quench design allows sufcient cleaning effects by the injected quench water and simultaneously keeps the amount of quench water at a minimum level, so that the heat recovery equipment can be designed as small as possible. 2.4. Alternative commercial entrained ow gasiers The entrained ow gasier mentioned above has originally been designed to convert low grade coal in IGCC facilities. In IGCC facilities, the product gas is combusted in a gas turbine and the excess heat from the gasication and gas turbine is used in a steam cycle. At present many operators of IGCC facilities are testing the co-feeding of biomass and coal. In turn, it is possible to utilize the gasication technology of IGCC facilities in a gasication facility for fuel and chemicals production. The following section provides an overview of available gasication technology of suppliers other than Siemens and their respective advantages and drawbacks. In cooperation with the Nuon company, Shell is developing an IGCC plant in the Netherlands, which is supposed to process 2000 t of coal per day. The fossil-based emission of CO2 shall be cut by 20% by co-feeding biomass to the gasier [22]. The developments of Shell are focusing on implementing low grade fuels such as lignite or biomass. The most important feature is a dry feed system which brings considerable savings in oxygen consumptions since there is less water contained in the feedstock that has to be evaporated and heated. The technically sophisticated and capital intensive equipment compensates the before mentioned advantage to some extent. The Shell gasication process is based on relatively high temperature levels around 1500 C. This causes comparably higher thermal losses. For that reason complex multi-stage gas cooling is applied to recover the released thermal energy [6]. Regarding a fully biomass based feedstock, it has to be investigated how the high ash content of biomass affects the clogging of gas cooling systems. Another drawback in fuel und chemicals production is the large amount of excess heat which cannot be completely integrated. Gasication technology by General Electric dates back to developments for the synthesis gas production of Texaco more than 50 years ago. The largest gasier is currently operated by Tampa Electric Company in an IGCC facility and converts 2500 t of coal per day. The coal feeding system is similar to that of Siemens using a coal slurry made of water. The gasication temperature is slightly higher, namely 1300 C. In addition to a single-stage water quench cooling, a two-stage cooling system with a high temperature heat exchanger for high pressure steam generation and subsequent water quench was developed [8]. The two-stage system increases the thermal efciency of the gasication process but implies the possible drawback of clogging due to feedstock types with high ash contents. By now, Tampa Electric Company has only tested biomass co-feeding up to a share of about 1.2% in the total feed ow. ConocoPhilips developed the so-called E-Gas gasier that has originally been introduced by Destec Energy in 1976. A commercial gasier with a capacity of 1850 t of coal per day is operated since 1991 at the Wabash River IGCC facility. The gasication process is performed in two stages. The rst stage produces synthesis gas at temperatures around 1400 C. Most of the slag falls down into a water bath and solidies. In the second stage, additional coal slurry is injected that is pyrolyzed by the hot synthesis gas from the rst stage. Thereby the higher heating value (HHV) of the resulting product gas is increased. The advantage of this chemical quenching is the low overall oxygen consumption since only part of the feedstock is gasied with oxygen in the rst stage. An important drawback of this technology is the high particulate load of the product gas [19]. Furthermore this gasication process has a relatively high CH4 yield which is not suitable for fuel or chemicals synthesis applications.

Even though the gasication technologies are not yet fully compatible with a feedstock which is 100% biomass derived, their available data on economic performance is suitable for the estimations conducted in this study due to their similar capacities and process conditions.

2.5. Upstream processing units The air separation unit (ASU) is located upstream of the gasier. The ASU represents a large part of the xed capital investment and plays an important role in the operation costs due to its extensive electricity consumption. The technology for the oxygen generation considered in this study is cryogenic air rectication. There are two major suppliers for large-scale air separation technology at capacities of about 70,000 m 3/h of oxygen. Data about investments and the electricity consumption are gathered from the suppliers Linde [23] and Air Liquide [24] as well as studies on IGCC facilities [6,9]. The main equipment components needed for cryogenic air rectication are the air compressor, the distillation cold box as well as oxygen and nitrogen compressors [25]. A critical inuence on the production costs of puried oxygen is whether or not the byproduct nitrogen can be used on-site or sold externally. In this investigation, the nitrogen is assumed not to be utilized or sold, so the results for oxygen production can be seen as a conservative estimate. Further equipment located upstream of the gasier is the slurry handling and feed system. Congurations of the gasication facility considering only biomass derived feedstock exclude slurry preparation. The slurry is assumed to be produced in decentralized fast pyrolysis plants and to be delivered to the gasication facility by rail. The delivery is supposed to be organized just-in-time so that reserve tanks for only 5 days of operation will be installed on-site. This assumption is also favorable in terms of inventory carrying costs since the biomass derived slurry is very expensive in comparison to coal. The required equipment in this conguration covers unloading equipment, blending tanks to ensure a constant slurry composition by mixing different lots and corresponding pumping systems. Before the slurry is injected into the gasier, it is pre-heated to approximately 120 C using the thermal energy recovered from the cooling screen. Considering the gasication facility conguration with coal and biomass co-feed, further equipment is required for the coal slurry preparation. The additional equipment covers coal receiving and handling systems as well as a silo. The coal is conveyed to rod mills where it is grinded and wetted with water to form the coal slurry. Besides the rod mills, water tanks and pumps are required to produce the slurry. Succeeding, the slurry is stored in buffer tanks equipped with agitators to keep the coal slurry suspended before it is injected into the gasier. The nal coal slurry has a dry solids concentration of about 63% [8]. In this scenario, the biomass derived slurry production via fast pyrolysis is considered to be integrated with the gasication facility. However, considering the capital investment, the slurry preparation is excluded but included in the syngas production costs with the slurry price also being used in the only biomass based congurations except that no transportation costs occur. As outlined in the following chapter, using steam as gasication agent, which is considered in some congurations of the gasication plant, requires steam generation equipment. The water ow that is required for the steam gasication is evaporated in a heat exchanger using the excess heat of the quench liquid recovered from the entrained ow gasier. Due to the relatively low temperatures, the evaporation has to take place at pressures below the operating pressure of the gasier and the generated steam has to be re-compressed. Succeeding, the compressed steam will be superheated to about 800 C using natural gas for heat supply. Further equipment located upstream of the gasier are only minor components such as natural and inert gas supply which has no

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remarkable inuence in terms of mass and energy ows as well as effects on economic aspects.

3. Assessment of different gasication congurations The goal of this techno-economic assessment is to determine the capital requirements for the considered gasication and synthesis facility and the production costs of syngas. Furthermore it is evaluating the inuence of changes in the process parameters on capital requirements and production costs. There are four kinds of varying process conditions that will be investigated using the methodology described in the following chapter. The rst process parameter that will be looked at is the operating pressure and its inuence on equipment sizing and material requirements. Secondly, the gasication agent will be varied between pure oxygen and a mixture of oxygen and steam being used for gasication. The third process variation regards the adjustment of the H2:CO ratio in the syngas, which will be adjusted to 1:1 and 2:1, respectively. Finally feedstock composition will be investigated by comparing only biomass based slurry to co-feeding of coal and biomass slurries. Following, the qualitative inuence of each of the parameter variations will be outlined.

2.6. Downstream processing units Gasier congurations considering only oxygen as a gasication agent need adjustment of the H2:CO ratio in the product gas. Depending on whether a ratio of 1:1 or 2:1 is desired, the sizing of required equipment components has to be adapted. For an H2:CO ratio of 1:1 about 11%m of the product gas have to be led through a watergas-shift reactor. To meet an H2:CO ratio of 2:1 this fraction has to be increased four times. The remaining product gas ow bypasses the shift-reactor. Before the gas ow enters the shift-reactor, it passes a gas scrubber to clean off dust particles in order to prevent catalyst fouling. The product gas leaving the entrained ow gasier after the water quench is already saturated with steam and has a temperature between 220 and 250 C. The required conditions for a low temperature watergas-shift reaction are met and no additional steam generation or heating is necessary. Depending on the operating pressure, the CO conversion rate in the shift reactor varies between 82 and 87%. The gas ow passing through the shift reactor is subsequently mixed together with the bypassing ow and the resulting product gas meets the desired H2:CO ratio. The nal output considered in this study is dry adjusted syngas with a temperature of 50 C. After the quench and shift reactor, respectively, the product gas contains a large amount of steam at elevated temperatures above 200 C. The enthalpy of this gas ow corresponds to more than 15% of the feedstock's HHV. The water is removed in a water scrubber using the condensate for quenching. The product gas leaving the water scrubber still has a water content of about 15% and is passed on to a gas cooler where it is cooled down to about 50 C to remove the remaining water. The condensate in the water scrubber is ltered and pumped through a water cooled heat exchanger and therewith cooled down to approximately 50 C before it is reused in the quench system. The heat discharged in the heat exchanger amounts to between 135 and 170 MWth at temperatures between 170 and 185 C. The resulting excess heat may be sold. Condensate exceeding the required water ow of the scrubber as well as the condensate from the succeeding gas cooler is led to the water treatment plant. Additional to the two before mentioned condensate ows, a third ow of condensate enters the water treatment plant. The liquid phase of the quench water used in the entrained ow gasier is cooled down to about 50 C and led into the water treatment plant afterwards. In a rst liquid waste treatment step, the water ow is ltered from solid particles that are conveyed to the slag treatment. The ltered water is then treated in a demineralizer in order to provide high quality water for re-utilization in the process. The demineralized water is stored in a buffer tank and nally re-injected with high pressure pumps into the quench zone of the entrained ow gasier. Due to the water recycling, no fresh water is used in the gasication facility. As a result of the continuous water input caused by the feedstock, the excess water has to be discharged. Due to the on-site treatment of waste water, the water can be drained without causing additional cost. The slag handling system is designed to convey, store and dispose of the slag discharged in the gasier and the liquid waste treatment. The ash solidies in the quench zone and falls down into a water bath at the bottom of the pressure vessel. A slag crusher receives the slag from the pressure vessel and reduces the size of the agglomerations. Following, the slag is dewatered and conveyed to a storage area. The dried slag is removed in periodic intervals via trains or trucks. The slag can be used as a component of road paving mixtures and maybe as a fertilizer when considering only biomass based feedstock [21]. In this study it is assumed that there is no income as well as no cost created by slag output.

3.1. Variation of operating pressure The operating pressure of the regarded gasication process is designed to values between 40 and 80 bar in order to meet the requirements of downstream synthesis. On the one hand, the operating pressure of downstream processing is lower and therefore no energy intensive recompression of the product gas will be necessary. On the other hand, high operating pressures reduce the equipment size and increase the capacity at a given size, respectively. The effect of elevating the operating pressure on equipment sizing will then be demonstrated for the gasication zone dimensions of the entrained ow reactor. Another inuence of higher operating pressures could be more stringent requirements on the construction materials. A close-up of the gasication zone of the entrained ow gasier is shown in Fig. 5. The dimensions given in the illustration are based on a Siemens gasier (adapted from [20]) and correspond to a capacity of 1000 MWth at different operating pressures. At the 40 bar pressure level a reactor volume of about 70 m3 results from the above illustrated dimensions. Elevating the pressure level up to 80 bar decreases the required reactor volume to about 50 m 3. The dimensions for the gasier with a capacity of 1000 MWth at an operating pressure of 80 bar is also shown in Fig. 5. The lateral surface is critical for the amount of required

40 bar:

80 bar:

6.7 m

6.0 m

3.7 m

3.2 m

Fig. 5. Comparison of gasier dimensions for different operating pressures (adapted from [20]).

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material for the equipment. The pressure elevation reduces the lateral surface by roughly 25%. Yet the savings in xed capital investment are not as high because they are partly outweighed by the constant investments for connections and control systems. The differences in xed capital investment between 40 and 80 bar operating pressure alternatives are in large parts referable to the entrained ow gasier investments. For downstream process equipment, the increased material requirements compensate the material savings. The variation of the operating pressure further affects the thermal efciency of the gasication process. Since the thermal losses caused by the cooling screen grow proportional to the lateral surface of the cooling screen and the reactor volume of the gasier, respectively, the losses can be cut down by 25% [16]. The ratio between capacity and cooling screen surface is a major argument for large scale applications of entrained ow gasiers. For example in small scale gasiers such as the 5 MWth testing facility, the thermal losses by the cooling screen account for 15% of the energy balance. By up-scaling to 1000 MWth capacities, this value can be reduced to 1.7% or 1.3% depending on the operating pressure. 3.2. Variation of gasication agent The gasication agents considered in this study for producing high quality syngas for application in fuels and chemicals syntheses are oxygen and steam. The rst option regarding the gasication agent is using oxygen with a purity of 98%. The oxygen is used for partial oxidation of the slurry feed and thereby provides the required heat for the endothermic decomposition reactions. When using oxygen as the gasication agent, the main component of the product gas is CO. The amounts of H2 in the product gas are depending on the water content of the considered feedstock. The values for the ratio of H2:CO reach a ratio of 0.8:1 at the maximum. Since the desired synthesis reactions for DME or FT require ratios of 1:1 and 2:1, respectively, a watergasshift reaction has to be added downstream to the oxygen gasication. Alternatively to the only oxygen based gasication agent, a combination of oxygen and steam is considered in this study. An additional superheated steam ow accounting for 20%m of the slurry is injected into the gasier at temperatures around 800 C. The additional water present during the gasication reactions increases the ratio of H2:CO to about 1:1. The option to match the required ratio for FT synthesis is not considered because of the extensive water demand. The already adjusted syngas ratio makes the watergas-shift reactor redundant. A drawback of the additional water in the product ow of the gasier is that larger capacities of downstream equipment are necessary. Another negative impact on the energy balance is caused by the steam generation. Since the required water can be evaporated using excess heat, the superheating still requires supplementary heat, which is assumed to be produced by natural gas combustion. The consumption corresponds roughly to 1.5% of the thermal input. Due to the additional water, a higher amount of oxygen is needed to provide the thermal energy for heating up the steam to 1200 C. In consequence, the capacity of the air separation unit (ASU) has to be increased. 3.3. Variation of syngas composition In order to investigate the inuence of the H2:CO ratio in the syngas on the capital investment and production costs, additional to the ratio of 1:1 which results from the two before mentioned gasication agent alternatives, a third process design is considered. To adjust the H2:CO ratio to 2:1, the watergas-shift capacity downstream of the entrained ow gasier has to be extended. This option is investigated in order to provide results for two currently discussed synthesis routes, i.e. DME or FT synthesis. The economic assessment aims to see if there are signicant costs differences in producing syngas with either of the ratios.

3.4. Variation of feed composition All of the process designs mentioned before are relying on 100% biomass derived feedstock. To supply a gasication facility with a capacity of 1000 MWth input, efcient and reliable large scale infrastructure for biomass transportation has to be available. Currently there is no such infrastructure available. Hence the last process conguration considers a mid-term scenario for the investigated gasication facility. The entrained ow gasication technology investigated in this study has been developed to handle lignite with a high ash level. The mid-term scenario in this study considers co-feeding of biomass and coal derived slurries. In a previous study conducted by the authors [26] the fast pyrolysis pre-treatment plant has been assessed. The integration of one fast pyrolysis pre-treatment plant within the 1000 MWth gasication plant would make the biomass slurry transportation redundant. In order to deliver 10% or 100 MWth input, the pyrolysis plant would need biomass input from an average transportation distance about 30 to 50 km depending on the biomass availability. The remaining 90% or 900 MWth input would be coal. This scenario is similar to existing co-feeding projects in IGCC facilities [27]. A major effect on the capital investment in case of coal gasication is the required coal slurry feed preparation. In order to use the same feeding system, the coal has to be preconditioned to slurry by grinding and mixing with water. Due to the diluting with water, the coal slurry has no signicantly higher HHV compared to the biomass derived slurry, so that no feedstock specic adaptations on the gasication equipment are necessary. The savings in consumption dependent costs for slurry feedstock and its transportation are of particular importance for the economic assessment. The comparison between only biomass derived syngas and the one derived from co-feeding will be illustrated in the results and discussion section. 4. Methodology for the techno-economic assessment In order to conduct the techno-economic analysis for different congurations of the gasication process, the mass and energy ows within the system boundaries are analyzed at rst. For this purpose, the process simulation software Aspen Plus is used. The mass and energy ow balancing builds up the foundation for the economic assessment. The capital investment estimates of the gasication facility are derived using the determined capacities. Using the capital investment for the main equipment components, the xed capital investment for the plant and therewith investment dependent costs are derived. Together with personnel and other operating costs, based on the results of the mass and energy ows, the annual costs of the plant and the specic production costs for syngas are estimated. Finally, the robustness of the applied methodology is discussed. 4.1. Mass and energy ow balancing using the process simulation software Aspen Plus Since there is no experimental data from large scale biomass gasication facilities available, the commercial thermodynamic process simulation tool Aspen Plus is used in this study to scale-up the results of test runs in a small scale gasier and to simulate different process conditions. Modeling the gasication of slurry requires adapted physical property models in Aspen Plus since solid components behave differently than liquids and gasses when calculating the heat and mass balances. In order to model the slurry in this study, the stream class MIXED and the sub-stream nonconventional (NC) with particle size distribution (PSD) is used. The optional specication allows for implementing experimental data which was conducted at KIT [28]. Apart from that, the other components present in the gasication process can be declared as conventional (CONVEN). The most important components considered in this study are H2, C, CO, CO2, H2O, CH4, C2H6, N2 and O2. Trace components such as HCN, NH3, COS and H2S are not

2176

HEATER

O2PUMP HEATX1 CONDHOT

OXYGEN

INERT WGS WATER WGSBYPAS PARTOX BYPASS WETSYN RAWSYN COOLCOND ADJSYN SYNDRY MIXWGSBY CONDH2O WATERSCR CONDSEP SYNCOOL COOLSEP CONDCALC
CALCULAT OR

NTRLGAS

DECOCALC

CALCULAT OR

PREHEAT

DECOMP

SLURRYIN

Q-DECOMP H2OSEP
CALCULAT OR

CSEP PRODUCTS C-LOSS H2OSPLIT QUENCH

F. Trippe et al. / Fuel Processing Technology 92 (2011) 21692184

WETGAS ASHSPLIT QENCHH2O QUENCHCO SLAG LIQCOOL

Fig. 6. Screenshot of an Aspen Plus entrained ow gasication model.

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considered in the Aspen Plus model. The nonconventional component requires additional information to calculate equilibrium conditions based on their density and enthalpy. Aspen Plus provides several models to estimate those properties. In this study, the methods HCOALGEN and DCOALIGT, which are based on the proximate and ultimate analysis of the slurry, are applied [29]. The real gasication process in the entrained ow gasier takes place in only one apparatus. In order to model this process in Aspen Plus, it has to be broken down into sub-processes. The processes inside the reaction zone of the gasier are modeled in Aspen Plus as the decomposition of solids and the partial oxidation of the decomposed matter. In Aspen Plus, the processes inside the quench zone are split up into quench cooling and carbon loss, which is connected to the slag discharge in the real process [30]. Fig. 6 shows the Aspen Plus model including up- and downstream blocks that are used to simulate the syngas production. 22The rst step in the Aspen Plus model is the decomposition of solid components in the slurry into conventional components. The model calculates the corresponding thermal energy that is needed for the decomposition by using a yield reactor (RYIELD) [31]. This reactor computes the component ows according to the proximate and ultimate analysis of the slurry stream. A FORTRAN block is used to compute the ow of each component with respect to the water content of the slurry input. In the next splitter block (FSPLIT), the carbon loss, which is actually caused by aggradation to the slag, is separated from the feed stream to prohibit the contribution to the equilibrium reaction in the gasication block. The gasication reactions are modeled by applying a Gibbs free energy reactor (RGIBBS). This reactor computes the product gas composition based on Gibbs's free energy equilibrium [3234]. The inputs that have to be specied additionally to the parameters passed on by the previous block are the operating pressure and the heat duty. The heat duty is partly calculated by the decomposition block and automatically passed on. The second part of the gasier heat duty is thermal losses due to the cooling screen. These losses depend on the reactor volume and consequently on the operating pressure and are calculated separately in an Excel spreadsheet. The values for the thermal losses depend on the operating pressure and reactor dimensions, respectively, as outlined before. Further streams entering the gasier block in the model are natural and inert gas, which are used for service applications. These two streams play a minor role in the equilibrium calculation. The most important input stream in order to adjust the temperature level of about 1200 C is the oxygen ow. The oxygen input is assumed to be provided by an air separation unit producing oxygen with a purity of 98%. The remaining 2% are assumed to be nitrogen that travels as inert through the gasier. The specication of the oxygen stream completes the required inputs for the gasier block and the product gas composition can be computed. Next the water quench system is modeled. In the actual gasier the quench accomplishes two tasks, i.e. the cleaning from impurities and rapid cooling. Since there are no more solid components present at this point of the simulation, only the cooling effect can be considered in the model. Since the real quench process is passed very rapidly and tar forming is assumed not to be relevant, a mixer block (MIXER) is used to model the water quench. The hot product gas stream is mixed with water at a temperature of about 50 C and the same pressure level as in the gasication zone. The water ow is adapted to meet an outlet temperature between 220 C and 250 C depending on the operating pressure. An important output of the quench block is the composition of the resulting product stream especially regarding the vapor and liquid fractions that determine the heat recovery conditions. To complete the model of the entrained ow gasier, the slag and liquid quench water discharge have to be integrated. In order to isolate these sub-streams from the product stream, separator blocks (SEPARATOR) are applied. The separation of the slag is performed by the rst block splitting up the input into the ash components of the input slurry and the remaining product stream being led to the second separation block. For this block another FORTRAN

calculator is used to compute the liquid fraction of water in the product stream and separate it from the product stream. At this point, the product stream consists of the gaseous products of the gasication and steam. The model of the entrained ow gasication apparatus is herewith complete. The further blocks are used to condition the nal output of syngas. In this study two kinds of syngas composition are considered with H2:CO ratios of 1:1 and 2:1. In case oxygen is used as a single gasication agent, a watergas-shift reactor is required to adjust the desired ratio. For modeling the watergas-shift an equilibrium reactor (REQUIL) is used. The equilibrium conditions are based on the specied homogeneous watergas-shift reaction. Further a splitter and mixer block (FSPLIT, MIXER) are applied to model a bypass since, depending on the desired output, only about 10% to 50% of the product gas has to pass through the watergas-shift reactor. Downstream of the shift reaction, the water scrubber is modeled by introducing a water ow into a mixer block (MIXER). Subsequently the liquid fraction is isolated by a separator block (SEPARATOR) connected to a FORTRAN calculation as mentioned before. The liquid is cooled down to about 50 C to be re-injected into the quench cooler. The transferred heat stream in the heat exchanger is calculated to estimate the excess heat of the gasication facility that could possibly be put to use outside the considered facility. Finally the product gas is cooled down to 50 C to remove the remaining water from the product ow. At this point, the product gas equals the nal syngas considered in this study, which is absolutely dry and H2:CO adjusted. The composition of this gas stream can be seen in the summarizing Table 7. For calibrating the process model, data from the 5 MWth testing facility in Freiberg, Germany, which is owned by the Siemens Fuel Gasication Technology GmbH, were used. Reaction and outlet temperatures were simulated with less than 2% error. The product gas composition was also simulated accurately, with deviations of 2% for single components at maximum. So the level of deviation of the Aspen Plus model is in the same range as the deviations between individual test runs. The most important assumptions for the up-scaled model are the constant gasication temperature level of 1200 C and the heat transfer coefcient through the cooling screen as measured with 150 W/m2K. Together with the assumptions on reactor dimensions mentioned in the following chapter, the model is adapted to the commercial large-scale capacity. The mass and energy balance serves to cover all relevant mass and energy ows across and within the system boundary of the considered gasication facility in order to compare the different process congurations. The main ows are the delivered slurry, produced syngas, electricity, excess heat and coal. To properly dene these ows, additional information about mass ows is needed. Crucial information concerning biomass and slurry ows, respectively, is the water content of the delivered slurry, which is dened as presented in Eq. (1). Water content = Mass of water : Mass of wet biomass 1

Furthermore, information about the energy content of a specic mass ow has to be determined. All calculations of energy ows in this study are performed on a HHV basis. To calculate the HHVs of slurry, coal and other material ows, the following Eq. (2), developed by Channiwala & Parikh [35], is applied. The equation allows a reliable estimate of the HHV based on the mass fractions of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur and ash.
HHVkJ = kg = 349:1 xC + 1178:3xH + 100:5xS 103:4xO 15:1xN 21:1 xAsh 2

xi

Mass fraction of element/substance

2178

F. Trippe et al. / Fuel Processing Technology 92 (2011) 21692184

To complete the mass and energy balance, further assumptions of energy losses concerning the heat transfer coefcient of the cooling screen within the gasier have to be made and fed into Aspen Plus in order to calculate the correct mass and energy balance. The heat transfer coefcient of the cooling screen is assumed to equal about 150 W/m K 2 and is used to calculate the thermal losses during gasication determined by the area of the gasier wall and the gasication temperature level in the before mentioned Excel spreadsheet.

4.2. Capital investment estimate The techno-economic assessment aims for determining the syngas production costs and comparing these process congurations. To achieve

this goal, the xed capital investment (FCI) for a gasication facility as described in the previous chapter has to be estimated at rst. For this purpose, all main equipment components have to be designed according to the mass and energy ows and their investment data has to be gathered. The main equipment components are assumed to be the components illustrated in Fig. 2. The according data on capital investment is presented in Table 1. Investment data for these components are taken from Peters et al. [36] and Green & Perry [37] for standardized components. For special components such as the gasier, economic studies and vendor quotes from respective suppliers have been taken into account [59,16]. These studies and vendor quotes reference equipment components with capacities close to the ones determined in the process model, so that adaptations using the scaling exponents, also presented in Table 1, are mostly limited to capacity variations about 20%.

Table 1 Overview of main equipment components (based on [59,16,36,37]). Design base Slurry handling and feed Slurry receive and unload Slurry/oil tank without agitator Centrifugal slurry/oil pumps Slurry blending tank Slurry blending tank agitators Slurry blending tank pumps Handling and feed foundation Optional coal handling and feed preparation Coal receive and unload Coal storage equipment Coal handling Coal preparation Slurry storage Slurry feed Feed preparation foundation Cooling water system and feed preheating Closed cycle cooling water pumps Closed cycle cooling heat exchangers Condensate and quench water system Condensate pumps Condensate cooler (heat exchanger) Liquid waste treatment system Makeup water demineralizer Condensate storage tank High pressure quench feed pump Optional steam gasication equipment Evaporator Compressor Superheater Gasier Natural + inert gas supply Gasier and associated equipment Gasication foundation Wet raw syngas treatment Water scrubber Watergas-shift reactor Syngas scrubber Condensed water pump Filter Counter current heat exchanger Syngas cooler/dryer Air separation unit (cyrogenic) Air compressor Cold box Oxygen compressor Nitrogen compressor Slag recovery and handling Slag dewatering, depressurizer, crusher Slag handling tank Slag conveyer Slag separation screen Slag conveyer Storage bin Unloading equipment 1250 t/h 5040 m3 504 m3/h 672 m3 3600 m3/h 42 m3/h 1625 t/h 625 t/h 200 t/h 200 t/h 200 t/h 200 t/h 1150 m3/h 600 m2 150 m3/h 250 m2 127.2 m3/h 63.6 m3/h 500 m3 140 m3/h 10 kg/s 3500 kW 10 MW 1500 m3/h 808 MW 1200 m3/h 210 t/h 800 m3/h 400 m3/h 400 m3/h 3500 m2 6700 m2 333,000 m3/h 2500 t/d 67,980 m3/h 222,600 m3/h 13 t/h 150 m3 13 t/h 13 t/h 13 t/h 500 m3 50 t/h Investment for installed equipment (in 2010) 1,693,376 1,160,749 41,557 282,384 206,091 44,717 792,550 1,698,220 2,194,233 2,040,067 533,836 3,550,128 9,941,315 1,585,101 54,739 390,604 114,040 299,193 459,541 169,967 237,477 148,080 1,240,801 1,601,033 1,200,775 377,705 26,239,109 2,753,288 417,870 1,165,951 1,149,142 106,453 227,377 1,961,266 3,754,423 9,850,080 3,048,793 2,869,443 7,035,998 3,495,027 146,096 80,052 200,129 80,052 237,477 226,623 Scaling exp. 0.69 0.57 0.33 0.57 0.49 0.33 0.69 0.69 0.69 0.69 0.69 0.69 0.33 0.60 0.33 0.60 0.70 0.70 0.57 0.33 0.60 0.69 0.60 0.70 0.80 0.60 0.80 0.60 0.33 0.70 0.60 0.60 0.69 0.80 0.69 0.69 0.70 0.57 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.57 0.69

F. Trippe et al. / Fuel Processing Technology 92 (2011) 21692184 Table 2 Ratio factors for direct and indirect capital investment. Percentage of investment for main equipment components (adapted from [36]) Direct investments Investment for installed main equipment components Instrumentation and controls Piping Electrical systems Buildings Yard improvements Service facilities Total direct investment Indirect investments Engineering and supervision Construction expenses Legal expenses Contractor's fee Contingency Total indirect investment Fixed Capital Investment (FCI) % 100 24 46 8 12 7 48 245 % 22 28 3 15 30 98 343 Operating pressure (bar) Gasication agent (oxygen O2, steam H2O) Product gas composition (H2:CO ratio) Feed composition in% (biomass/coal) Table 4 Overview of assessed gasication process congurations. Case 1 40 O2 Case 2 40 H2O +O2 1:1 Case 3 40 O2 Case 4 40 O2 Case 5 80 O2 Case 6 80 H2O + O2 1:1 Case 7 80 O2

2179

Case 8 80 O2

1:1

2:1

1:1

1:1

2:1

1:1

100/0 100/0 100/0 10/90 100/0 100/0 100/0 10/90

4.3. Production costs estimate After estimating the total capital investment, annual production costs can be derived. The annual production costs consist of investment dependent, personnel and consumption dependent costs. The investment dependent costs in turn are comprised of capital costs, maintenance, taxes as well as insurance and interests on working capital. Slurry and its transportation cost, electricity, coal, natural gas and catalysts make up the consumption dependent costs. The composition of the annual production costs is summarized by Eq. (4).
C Produtcion = FCI pa + pm + pt + pi + pWC + C Personnel + C Consumables

Since the investment data date back to different base years for their respective calculations, they have to be converted into and updated to the year 2010. The investment data are converted from US$ into using the yearly average exchange rate of the respective year. The exchange rates are taken from [38]. To account for price developments of equipment components, the price index from Klbel/Schulze [39] is used. Based on the investment data for the installed main equipment components, the total capital investment can be estimated using ratio factors for direct and indirect capital investment according to Peters et al. [36] as presented in Eq. (3). Table 2 shows the assumed ratio factors for controls, piping and further direct capital investments as well as the ratio factor for indirect capital investments, such as engineering or legal expenses. In addition to this the factor for the installation of equipment components amounts to about 1.4.   n Fixed capital investment FCI = IME 1 + fi
i=1

pa pm pt pi pWC

Annuity factor Percentage of FCI for maintenance Percentage of FCI for taxes Percentage of FCI for insurance Interests on working capital

The annuity method translates the initial investment, which is assumed to be the FCI estimated before, into a stream of identical payments for a given number of years [40]. These identical payments represent interests on and paying off the capital investment. The annuity factor is calculated according to Eq. (5) and states a percentage of FCI. Pa = 1 + ini 1 + in 1 5

IME fi

Investment for installed main equipment components Ratio factor for direct/indirect capital investment i = 1n

The listed ratio factors in Table 2 are adapted to process conditions, design complexity and required materials of the gasication facility considered in this study. The applied ratio factor method implies uncertainties of 20%, which are addressed later on in the discussion section.
Table 3 Maintenance costs of different functional units within the plant. Functional unit Slurry handling and feed Optional coal handling and feed preparation Air separation unit (cyrogenic) Cooling and quench water system O ptional steam gasi cation equipment Gasier Wet raw syngas treatment Slag recovery and handling Maintenance costs as percentage of FCI (adapted from [36]) 2.0% 2.0% 5.0% 5.0% 5.0% 5.0% 5.0% 2.0%

i n

Interest rate Expected lifetime

The parameters used in this study are an interest rate of 7% p.a. and 20 years expected lifetime. The interest rate is believed to be the average rate over the 20 years time span. The recovery value of the gasication facility after the expected lifetime of 20 years is assumed to equal zero.
Table 5 Assumed composition of considered slurries and respective HHVs. In %m C H O Ash Hetero (N, S) Water HHV (MJ/kg) Biomass derived slurry 43.2 4.6 16.0 7.5 0.3 28.4 18.8 Coal based slurry 45.2 3.2 4.9 6.9 2.8 37.00 19.2

2180 Table 6 Input parameters for different gasier congurations. Case 1 Thermal input (MW HHV) Biomass slurry input (t/h) Coal slurry input (t/h) Natural gas input (Nm3/h) Gasication steam (t/h) Temperature Gasier (C) Temperature Quench (C) Quench water (m3/h) O2 98% input (Nm3/h) Lambda Power con-sumption (MWe) 1001 192 0 50 0 1202 216 250 75,000 0.40 58.8

F. Trippe et al. / Fuel Processing Technology 92 (2011) 21692184

Case 2 1014 192 0 1269 38 1200 218 360 76,150 0.40 63.5

Case 3 1001 192 0 50 0 1202 216 250 75,000 0.40 58.9

Case 4 1001 19 169 50 0 1202 215 250 70,800 0.38 56.5

Case 5 1001 192 0 50 0 1200 253 225 73,600 0.39 58.0

Case 6 1010 192 0 900 38 1203 255 320 75,000 0.40 65.9

Case 7 1001 192 0 50 0 1200 253 225 73,600 0.39 58.1

Case 8 1001 19 169 50 0 1200 252 225 69,900 0.37 56.1

Annual maintenance costs differ between the functional units as presented in Table 3. The weighted average according to the FCI of each functional unit equals, depending on the respective conguration, between 4.1% and 4.6% of the plant FCI per year. Furthermore it is assumed that insurance and taxes contribute with annually 1% of FCI each to the annual production costs of the syngas [36]. Interests on working capital represent the nal part of investment dependent costs. Working capital can be interpreted as money tied up in stocks of slurry and coal as well as in spare parts and is estimated to account for 5% of FCI. In comparison to the default value of 15% used by Peters et al. [36], this value is lower due to the just-in-time delivery of slurry. To derive the interest on working capital, the already mentioned interest rate of 7% is applied. The personnel demand and costs estimation is based on previous studies from Henrich et al. [10] and Siemens [9] for similar facilities based on data for German workforce. Personnel costs vary between 40,000 and 90,000 per employee and year, depending on the necessary qualication. The overall number of personnel needed in three shift operation sums up to 58 employees with a weighted average personnel costs per employee and year of 55,000 . Costs for consumption dependent material ows depend on plant availability. On average about 7000 operating hours per year are assumed, which corresponds to 80% plant availability during the expected lifetime. This is consistent with operation experience in the Puertollano IGCC plant [41]. Consumption dependent costs are dominated by the costs for slurry input. The price of slurry has been evaluated by the authors of this study in a previous publication [26] and equals about 35 /MWh in the base scenario. Since the price for slurry has a strong inuence on production costs of syngas, further scenarios for slurry production from biomass are illustrated in the discussion section. According to the slurry production scenario, the transportation costs for slurry are derived. The base scenario assumes an average transportation distance of 250 km by rail and costs of 21.80 per dry ton of slurry [42]. The price of electricity equals the annual average in 2010 of 99.30 /MWh provided by the Federal Statistical Ofce in Germany [43]. The prices for coal and natural gas inputs are also estimated with the annual averages in

2010 provided by the Federal Statistical Ofce [43]. Imported Coal is estimated to cost 85.33 per hard coal unit plus 12 for the delivery and natural gas 20.61 /MWh. Finally costs for the replacement of watergasshift catalysts are added to the consumption dependent costs [44]. Water is assumed to have no effect on the production costs since there is no fresh water demand and the waste water treatment is located on site and already accounted for. Since the prices for feedstock, electricity and other consumables will vary substantially during the considered lifetime, these prices should be regarded as average values whose variation is investigated in the discussion section. 5. Results of the techno-economic assessment This section summarizes the results conducted by applying the before mentioned methodology on the different process congurations modeled in Aspen Plus. Table 4 gives a quick overview on the different congurations of the gasication facility assessed in this study. Cases 1 to 4 correspond to operating pressures of 40 bar and cases 5 to 8 to 80 bar. Case 2 and 6 refer to the gasication agent as a mixture of oxygen and steam. Cases 3 and 7 consider FT-synthesis adjusted syngas and cases 4 and 8 cover co-feeding of coal and biomass. 5.1. Mass and energy ows As outlined before the optimal conguration of gasication technology is highly dependent on the properties of the feedstock that is to be converted. Table 5 provides information about the composition and the respective specic HHVs of biomass and coal derived slurries investigated in this study computed with Eq. (2). Depending on the kind of slurry, the operating pressure and the gasication agent used in the gasi cation process, the input parameters for the respective congurations differ from one another. Table 6 illustrates the changes in input parameters. Combining the coal and biomass slurries corresponds in all cases to 1000 MWth input. The minor differences in thermal input are based on auxiliary natural gas consumption as well as in cases 2 and 6 from natural gas consumption for steam super heating. The gasication temperature is constant in all cases but the quench temperature in 80 bar operating pressure cases is about 35 C higher. As a result, the quench water ow in these cases is lower as well. The stoichiometric oxygen-to-fuel ratio lambda is lowest in co-feed cases, which has a major inuence on electricity consumption. The electricity consumption of the air separation unit accounts for about 86% up to 96% of the electricity consumption depending on whether or not steam has to be compressed in order to be injected into the gasier and whether or not coal has to be pretreated. Table 7 summarizes the nal syngas composition which is considered as the output of the gasication facility in this assessment.

Table 7 Syngas composition for different gasier congurations. In %vol N2 H2 CO CO2 CH4 H2:CO ratio Desired synthesis Case 1 0.6 41.0 41.1 17.3 b 0.1 1.0 DME Case 2 0.6 40.4 41.7 17.3 b 0.1 1.0 DME Case 3 0.5 48.1 24.2 27.2 b 0.1 2.0 FT Case 4 0.6 41.6 41.7 16.1 b 0.1 1.0 DME Case 5 0.6 41.1 41.1 16.9 0.2 1.0 DME Case 6 0.6 40.6 41.8 16.9 0.1 1.0 DME Case 7 0.5 48.2 24.2 26.9 0.2 2.0 FT Case 8 0.6 41.5 41.6 16.0 0.3 1.0 DME

F. Trippe et al. / Fuel Processing Technology 92 (2011) 21692184 Table 8 Energy balance for different gasier congurations. In % of HHVSlurry Case 1 Case 2 74.8 1.1 16.3 3.8 1.0 3.0 Case 3 76.7 1.5 13.5 3.9 1.1 3.3 Case 4 76.7 1.6 13.4 3.4 1.0 3.9 Case 5 77.4 1.6 15.2 2.0 0.4 3.4 Case 6 75.8 1.8 17.1 1.6 0.3 3.4 Case 7 77.5 1.7 14.6 2.4 0.4 3.4 Case 8 77.1 1.9 14.4 2.0 0.6 4.0

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more than 2% of HHV input. The slag accruing in the gasication process accounts for about 8% of the mass input.

Cold gas efciency 76.6 (CGE) Heat recovery 1.5 quench liquid Heat recovery 14.1 water scrubber Heat recovery 3.5 syngas cooler Heat recovery 1.1 cooling screen Other losses 3.2 (e.g. carbon loss)

5.2. Capital investment Based on the mass and energy balances outlined in the previous section, the main equipment components presented in the methodology have been prized according to the respective capacities. Since the calculated capacities for each gasier conguration differed slightly from the design base shown in Table 1, the scaling exponents have been applied for adaptation. Fig. 7 summarizes the results regarding xed capital investments for each gasier conguration. The xed capital investment numbers are based on the scaled prices for main equipment components using the ratio factors for direct and indirect investments presented in Table 2. As presented in Fig. 7, the xed capital investment for the different gasication congurations considered in this study sums up to values between 274 and 349 million . Comparing the results for cases 1 to 4 (40 bar) with the cases 5 to 8 (80 bar) regarding the requirements for xed capital investment shows that the cases considering 80 bar operating pressure throughout the gasication process are less capital intensive than the ones considering 40 bar operating pressure. For the most part this results from savings in gasier and auxiliaries capital requirements due to reactor size reduction at elevated pressures as outlined before. The same effect appears in a smaller way for surrounding equipment. In total, the comparison of each 40 bar conguration with its corresponding 80 bar conguration points out that xed capital investment can be lowered by about 10% by applying the higher operating pressure. Using steam as an additional gasication agent makes capital investment in watergas-shift reactors redundant since the H2:CO ratio is met without shift reaction. Comparing the cases 1 and 2 as well as 5 and 6 reveals that using steam as additional gasication agent increases the xed capital investment by about 6%. The capital requirements for additional steam gasication equipment as well as for quench and succeeding cooling systems overcompensates the saving for the shift reactors. The variation of the syngas composition regarding the H2:CO ratio has only little inuence on xed capital investment. Comparing the cases 1 and 3 as well as 5 and 7 displays an increase of only 2% when aiming for an H2:CO ratio of 2:1. This increase is almost exclusively caused by the additional capital requirement for shift reactors with a four times higher capacity. Looking at the feedstock variation indicates the strongest changes in xed capital investment. The additional handling, preparation and feed systems for coal increase the xed capital investment by about 14%. This effect is a result of the considered system boundaries in the study. Since the biomass derived slurry is considered to be prepared in decentralized facilities, the xed capital investments for congurations using only biomass derived slurry appear to be lower compared to the ones using coal slurry. This effect will be adjusted when looking at the production costs, because the capital costs caused by xed capital investment for biomass slurry preparation are included in the costs for biomass slurry consumption.

In addition to the gas composition the H2:CO ratio is shown, which is determining the succeeding use of the syngas in DME and FT synthesis reactions, respectively. The results in Table 7 show that the nal syngas composition is relatively stable considering the cases for subsequent DME synthesis. Cases 3 and 7, which are designed for subsequent FT synthesis, indicate high levels of CO2 in the syngas, which is a result of the extensive water-gasshift reaction where H2O and CO are shifted to H2 and CO2. The energy balances for the different congurations of the gasication process are summarized in Table 8. The most important parameter inuencing the energetic efciency of the whole BtL fuel and chemicals production is the cold gas efciency (CGE). The CGE describes the HHV share of the slurry input that is contained in the cold syngas. Further, the heat recovery possibilities with different heat exchangers in the gasication facility are listed. Other losses contain losses caused by the lost carbon in the slag as well as the thermal energy contained in the slag. About half of the other losses is caused by the compression work which is contained in the compressed syngas. For 80 bar operating pressure cases it is even higher. CGE is about 2% lower in case of using steam as an additional gasication agent (cases 2 and 6) due to the extra ow of water that has to be heated up to the gasication temperature of 1200 C. The extra water in the gasier causes a higher thermal load in the heat recovery units. The values for case 2 and 6 in Table 8 are based on the assumption that heat from the quench liquid is reused to evaporate the additional water for steam gasication. Thus the numbers for the heat recovery from the quench liquid seem not to differ between the cases. Concerning the heat recovery from the cooling screen, the numbers in the table above are reduced by the heat demanded for pre-heating the slurry to about 120 C which account for roughly 1% of the HHV input. Finally Table 9 summarizes the output ows for the different gasication congurations. Syngas is considered to be only the H2 and CO shares in the product gas. The usable heat stated in Table 9 considers only the amount of thermal excess energy at elevated temperature levels above 150 C and thermal loads accounting for

Table 9 Output parameters for different gasier congurations. Case 1 Syngas,H2 + CO (Nm3/h) Usable heat (MW) Temperature level usable heat (C) Slag (t/h) 216,980 141 172 15.3 Case 2 214,968 165 174 15.3 Case 3 216,980 135 171 15.3 Case 4 217,154 134 171 15.0 Case 5 217,810 152 188 15.3 Case 6 216,198 173 187 15.3 Case 7 217,813 146 187 15.3 Case 8 216,833 144 186 15.0

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350 300

Slag recovery and handling Raw syngas treatment Gasifier and auxiliaries Optional steam gasification Cooling and quench water system Air separation unit Optional coal handling, preparation and feed 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Slurry handling and feed

(2010) Million

250 200 150 100 50 0

Fig. 7. Overview of xed capital investment for different gasier congurations.

5.3. Production costs Table 10 summarizes the total production costs for the considered syngas on an annual basis. This presents the xed capital investment dependent cost components, which are capital costs, maintenance costs, tax and insurance. It also points out the personnel costs as well as the consumption dependent cost. The most important component among the consumption dependent costs are the slurry costs. As mentioned before these include all the costs caused by converting biomass such as straw or residual wood into pumpable, pneumatically atomizable slurry. Comparing congurations with 40 bar operating pressure to the respective 80 bar congurations shows differences in annual production cost between 2% and 4%. In comparison to the xed capital investment, these differences have been leveled due to the invariant costs components such as slurry consumption as well as its transportation and personnel cost. Additional costs regarding the congurations with steam gasication in case 2 and 6 are mainly caused by overconsumption of electricity and natural gas for the compression and superheating of steam. Adding these additional costs to the already higher capital dependent costs leads to an increase of production costs of about 2.5% compared to the syngas adjustment with shift reactors. Regarding the variation of the H2:CO ratio in the syngas to 2:1, the difference in xed capital investment is almost completely leveled out due to the identical costs components apart from the capital dependent costs. Production costs can roughly be cut by half when switching the feedstock to co-feed of coal and biomass derived slurry. The additional capital dependent costs caused by coal slurry preparation equipment are overcompensated by lower feed prices for coal in comparison to the biomass derived slurry.

5.4. Discussion Prior to the nal discussion, the effects of uncertainties implied by the estimation methods applied in this study have to be explained in detail. The investment estimation is for example inuenced by volatilities of domestic price developments and exchange rates between different currencies. These uncertainties amount to roughly 20% of the xed capital investment estimates as mentioned before. Though the differences between the respective cases investigated amount to less than 1% in production costs in some cases, the results are yet signicant since most of the uncertainties affect all cases to the same extent. The absolute results of production costs estimation are likely to be affected but the ranking among the considered cases is more robust against variations. Finally, the following comparison of the cases 5 and 8 demonstrates the inuence of feedstock on production costs. Fig. 8 compares the most economic conguration (case 5) with only biomass based feedstock to the one with biomass and coal co-feed (case 8) at 80 bar operating pressure. The specic production costs in case 5 amount to 22.92 -Cent/Nm 3 and 12.63 -Cent/Nm 3 in case 8, respectively. With only biomass based feedstock the costs for slurry and its transportation amount to 17.14 -Cent/Nm 3. This corresponds to roughly 75% of the production costs. The detailed composition of slurry costs can be found in the previous study of Trippe et al. [26]. Using coal as feedstock effects high reductions in production costs. In addition to the cost aspect, this consideration is also important as a mid-term scenario in the transition from fossil to biomass derived syngas production for fuel and chemicals synthesis. Since efcient biomass logistics require specically designed infrastructure, a realization of the gasication facility as considered in cases 1 to 3 and 5 to 7 is regarded as a long-term perspective. More realistic congurations are

Table 10 Summary of syngas production costs for different gasier congurations. Case 1 Capital costs (k/a) Maintenance cost (k/a) Tax (k/a) Insurance (k/a) Personnel costs (k/a) Slurry costs (k/a) Slurry transpor-tation costs (k/a) Electricity costs (k/a) Coal costs (k/a) Natural gas costs (k/a) WGS catalyst costs (k/a) Sum (k/a) Specic syngas costs (/Nm3) 29,948 13,881 3059 3059 3190 242,747 18,883 40,933 0 80 31 355,812 0.2340 Case 2 31,764 14,809 3245 3245 3190 242,747 18,883 44,161 0 2023 0 364,066 0.2417 Case 3 30,522 14,174 3118 3118 3190 242,747 18,883 40,995 0 80 131 356,957 0.2347 Case 4 34,116 14,608 3485 3485 3190 24,275 0 39,331 75,406 80 31 198,007 0.1301 Case 5 26,801 12,273 2738 2738 3190 242,747 18,883 40,390 0 80 31 349,870 0.2292 Case 6 28,596 13,190 2921 2921 3190 242,747 18,883 45,859 0 1435 0 359,741 0.2374 Case 7 27,427 12,593 2802 2802 3190 242,747 18,883 40,460 0 80 133 351,116 0.2300 Case 8 30,739 12,883 3140 3140 3190 24,275 0 39,028 75,406 80 29 191,909 0.1263

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Case 8

Case 5

0 Capital costs Insurance

10 Maintenance cost Personnel costs Electricity costs WGS catalyst costs

15 Tax

20

25

in -Cent per Nm3

Slurry costs Coal costs

Slurry transportation costs Natural gas costs

Fig. 8. Comparison of different feedstock alternatives.

described in cases 4 and 8, which consider co-feeding of biomass derived and coal slurry with a ratio of 10:90 on an energy basis. Feedstock costs in case 8 can be cut down by more than 60% to 6.56 -Cent/Nm 3. This is accomplished by replacing 90% of biomass feedstock with coal and further slurry transportation is redundant because the biomass pre-treatment plant can be integrated into the gasication facility. But still, the feedstock costs account for about 52% of the production costs. Due to the high share of feedstock costs in total production costs, process optimization has only limited inuence on production costs. Regarding the increase of plant availability from the above considered 7000 to 8000 operating hours per year would only decrease production cost by about 2% and 4% in biomass and cofeed cases, respectively. Reducing the feedstock costs for biomass derived slurry costs represents the most effective way to level the costs difference to the co-feed case. In the before mentioned previous study by Trippe et al. [26] a scenario with slurry production in Thailand has been considered. This scenario was intended to line out the costs reduction potential of using biomass available at low prices. Introducing the calculated biomass slurry costs of 18.72 /MWh and assuming slurry transportation cost by cargo ship of roughly 50 /t results in production cost of 18.34 -Cent/Nm3 which corresponds to savings of about 20%. But still the only biomass based production is 45% more expensive compared to biomass and coal co-feed. Biomass import from Thailand raises the question if it is desirable to exchange dependency on coal imports for a dependency on biomass imports. In order to bypass the import dependency problems, ways to decrease biomass feedstock costs in Germany have to be developed. Biorenery concepts are possible approaches. They are aiming at the extraction of valuable components from the slurry that could be sold right away before the gasication takes place and therewith lower the feedstock price for the gasication facility. Further potential for production costs reductions are involved in the usage of thermal excess heat. As stated in Table 9, between 140 and 170 MWth at temperature levels from 170 C to 185 C are available in the respective cases. Since the temperature levels are too low for electricity generation using a steam turbine, either an Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) or Kalina process has to be applied to generate electricity. The net efciency of ORC and Kalina processes for electricity generation reaches levels close to 20% [45,46]. Considering the available excess heat about half of the electricity consumption could be generated on site and replace the consumption of externally generated electricity. The estimation of additional xed capital investment for electricity generation equipment is accomplished by assuming a specic investment of roughly 2000 /kWe capacity [45,46]. Using these assumptions and recalculating the production costs identies saving potentials between 4% and 7% when using the excess heat for electricity generation. Another possibility to reduce the production costs is the sale of nitrogen that is generated in the air separation unit, but which up to

this point in the assessment is considered as waste ow. Finding a consumer for excess nitrogen is assumed to reduce the production cost of oxygen by roughly 30%. Considering the production costs for syngas presented in Table 10, the revenues from nitrogen could potentially decrease these costs by 4% to 8% for the respective cases. 6. Conclusions This study focuses on the techno-economic assessment of biomass derived slurry in a potential industrial scale entrained ow gasier. First the classication of gasication in BtL fuel and chemicals production is presented and the considered technology outlined and compared to similar development from IGCC processes. An entrained ow gasier seems to be a promising concept as it is capable for large scale applications and produces a tar-free synthesis gas. This technology is considered in different congurations. The alternated process parameters investigated in the techno-economic assessment consider a varying operating pressure of the gasier, different gasication agents, two kinds of syngas compositions in terms of the H2:CO ratio as well as feedstock variations such as only biomass based slurry and co-feed of biomass and coal slurry. The aim is to determine the inuence of these alternative gasication process congurations on xed capital investment and syngas production costs. The methodology applied is a mass and energy ow balancing using the process simulation software Aspen Plus combined with investment and costs estimation based on literature data and vendor quotes. The nal product considered in this gasication oriented study is dry syngas with an adjusted H2:CO ratio for subsequent utilization in DME or FT synthesis. Looking at the different process congurations considered in this study, it is to summarize that increasing the operating pressure has the strongest effect on production costs decrease. The introduction of additional steam as a gasication agent has negative effects on production costs in the considered gasication facility. Producing syngas with different H2:CO ratios for application in DME or FT synthesis has no signicant inuence on production costs. In order to reduce the production costs of syngas in the considered gasication facility, the following options are considered: First, the utilization of excess heat for electricity generation in an ORC or Kalina process, which could cover about half of the electricity consumption, has been investigated. This option would allow savings in production cost of about 4% to 7%. Second, the sale of nitrogen produced as a by-product by the air separation unit has been looked at. The savings in production costs resulting from this option range from 4% to 8%. The most important conclusion from the conducted results is the importance of feedstock costs, which is identied as the most effective starting point to lower production costs of syngas. Therefore and since the realization of a BtL fuel and chemicals production concept based only on biomass is most likely to be a gradual development of facilities, this study investigated co-feeding of biomass and coal slurry

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as a mid-term development scenario in a transition towards fully biomass based BtL production. The usage of 10% biomass derived slurry and 90% coal almost cuts the production costs by half. In the long run, the transition to fully biomass derived syngas has to be accompanied by savings in costs for biomass based slurry. For this reason, biomass from countries such as Thailand is considered in order to investigate the effect of biomass available at lower prices. Bio-renery concepts are another possibility to avoid newly developing import dependencies by extracting of valuable by-products from the home grown biomass to reduce feedstock costs. Acknowledgments We appreciate the substantial nancial support from the BadenWrttemberg Ministry of Agriculture (MLR) and the Agency of Renewable Resources (FNR) of the German Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection (BMELV). References
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