Tag Archive for: Research and development

Longstanding Bio4Energy member Mikael Thyrel is new platform leader for Feedstock Pre-processing. Photo by Anna Strom ©2023.©AnnaStrom

New leader for Feedstock Pre-processing Eyes Critical Raw Materials as New Direction for Research

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Bio4Energy’s smallest research platform has a new leader with a grand vision.

Mikael Thyrel of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) has been a member of the research environment since the outset in 2010.

In fact, he first joined the laboratory of Bio4Energy’s first programme manager, professor emeritus Stellan Marklund of Umeå University. There, Thyrel rose to increasing responsibility and, in 2009, shifted to SLU to become a PhD student with associate professor Torbjörn Lestander.

Today he is not only a university lecturer, but also head of department at SLU Forest Biomaterials and Technology. His colleagues may know him to be a coordinator for the Sweden-based synchrotron Max IV Laboratory for very high-tech X-ray laser research.

Although his specialty is biomass spectroscopy, Thyrel’s vision for work on the Feedstock Pre-processing platform is much greater.

“Our platform serves the rest of Bio4Energy by designing different types of fractionated biomass. It is mostly about applied research in the area of pre-treatment”, he told Bio4Energy Communications in an online interview.

“However, we may shift our focus. We could [turn our attention to] critical raw materials, such as graphite, to make the technique sustainable and available locally.

“We have been building an electrochemical lab… where we develop biocarbon materials for use in batteries or adsorbents. We are looking at functionality and surface chemistry”, Thyrel said.

The platform would continue to rely on the Biomass Technology Centre, the university’s off-campus development facility that is always teeming with life, as technicians and scientists work hand in hand to deliver dried, fractionated or pelletised materials to customers in industry. New coordinator there is Magnus Rudolfsson, researcher.

Greatly appreciated by his colleagues, Thyrel clearly is one of those die-hard Bio4Energy members whose enthusiasm never seems to fade neither for the small wins of research progress, nor the big ones of making Sweden a leading light when it comes to developing and designing bio-based technologies that can help phase out the fossil economy.

Now he has become a research platform leader in the Bio4Energy research environment.

“It feels great. Our efforts are so timely, given what is going here [in northern Sweden]. It is an industrial revolution!”, according to Thyrel.

For more information, go to: Bio4Energy Feedstock Pre-processing, Biomass Technology Centre, Bio4Energy at SLU

Biomass (left) must be turned into biocarbon (right) in a controlled process to be an alternative for use to fossil coal in the iron and steel industries. Kentaro Umeki is Bio4Energy's man on the job. Photos by courtesy of Kentaro Umeki, Luleå University of Technology.Courtesy Kentaro Umeki. Collage by Anna Strom

Phase Out of Fossil Coal in Sweden’s Iron, Steel Industries on Cards

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A project consortium including research groups, technology development companies, plant owners and iron and steel industry; is about to take a large step toward phasing out the use of fossil coal in the iron and steel industries in Sweden.

Thanks to a substantial grant from the Swedish Energy Agency, the partners will be able to deliver a reactor concept and a roadmap detailing the way in which to implement a switch from fossil coal to biocarbon in existing district-heating plants, using fluidised-bed gasification technology.

Whereas fossilised coal is extracted from the Earth’s interior in mining operations, oftentimes transported over long distances and a potent source of greenhouse gas emissions; biocarbon is high-temperature treated biomass from woody residue or industrial bio-based waste that will be sourced regionally by the partners. 

In fact, when treated at a temperature range of 500 – 900 degrees Celsius, biomass becomes almost pure solid carbon and earns the name “biocarbon”. It is seen as carbon “neutral” under the current regulatory framework and so the expectation is that the new technology will deliver net zero emissions of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas. 

Seven-to-nine per cent of global emissions of carbon dioxide hail from iron and steel making operations. In Sweden, where the sector is both an important employer and provider of exports, this figure is 12 per cent.

Bio4Energy’s role in the four-year project is to map out what conditions are needed for biocarbon to be a cost-effective alternative to fossil coal, via modeling and laboratory trials. Notably, the research results will show which biomass properties and mixing behavior inside the reactors are optimal. Professor Kentaro Umeki of Luleå University of Technology will lead these efforts, starting now.

“The reaction [inside the reactor or boiler] has to be precisely controlled for the quality and productivity of the steel to be high”, Umeki said in a conference call with Bio4Energy Communications.

“We have been working for six-seven years to optimise the biocarbon properties and yield”, he added, with reference to other projects, running or concluded.

For all the talk about climate change and fossil fuel phase out, Umeki said, there was an important point that tended to be overlooked in the societal debate.

“It is extremely important to know that carbon is still needed as the transition happens. Almost the only source of renewable carbon is biomass.

“Quite many processes for instance in the petrochemical industry still need carbon, even if you do not see it [as a consumer]. The carbon gotten from biomass is the most cost effective”, he said.

A recent estimate for total biocarbon production needed to replace fossil coal in the sector, put the total to between 200,000 and 300,000 tonnes of biocarbon during the years 2030 – 2045, according to background documentation to the consortium’s grant application.

“At the end of the project, there will be a new reactor concept ready to implement and which will provide the industrial partners with up to 80,000 tonnes per annum of biocarbon and a reduction of CO2 emission of about 290,000 tonnes per year”, it said;

“Thus it becomes clear that the proposed technology can deliver future needs of biocarbon to the iron and steel industries on a national level”.

Consortium partners are: Chalmers University of Technology (lead), Luleå University of Technology, RISE Research Institutes of Sweden, BioShare, E.ON, Höganäs and SSAB.