Novel Thermo-chemical Biomass Conversion with the Reciprocating Biomass Conversion Reactor (rbcr)

Introduction The reciprocating biomass conversion reactor (RBCR) is a novel means of converting biomass to bio-oil. The RBCR is a repurposed highcompression 4-stroke internal combustion engine into which a fluidizing gas and a small volume fraction of pulverized biomass are introduced, and the crankshaft is cycled by an external energy source to supply the process heat for thermo-chemical conversion (Fig. 1). The RBCR uses a four-stroke process: 1) intake biomass/fluidizing gas, 2) compression for heating/conversion, 3) expansion for cooling/quenching, and 4) exhaust. Relative to the state of the art (which we consider to be the fluidized bed reactor), calculations predict that, for a comparable footprint, the RBCR can increase the biomass throughput by greater than 100% and decrease the mass-specific energy requirement by more than 50% to thermo-chemically convert biomass to bio-oil, bio-char, and bio-gas by fast-pyrolysis.