French Collaboration for Biofuels Production from Lignocellulosic Feedstock

The Biopact website reports that a consortium of French research agencies, are collaborating on a project which aims to develop a “Biomass-to-Liquids” (BTL) technology that can convert any type of lignocellulosic biomass into liquid “synthetic biofuels” for transport applications. The project, named “GASPAR”, is funded by the French Agency for Environment and Energy Management, and includes scientists from research agencies like the “Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement” (CIRAD), and the Institut Français du Pétrole (IFP), among others. “Synthetic biofuels” are fuels derived from the thermochemical processing of biomass.

In the Biomass-To-Liquids (BTL) conversion technology, synthetic biofuels production usually proceeds in two stages. In the first stage (the “gasification stage”), the ground (pulverized) biomass is allowed to react (at high temperature) with a gasifying agent (like oxygen, sometimes with steam), to produce a gaseous mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. This gas mixture (also called “synthesis gas” or “syngas”), enters the second stage (usually known as “Fischer Tropsch synthesis”), where it is converted thermochemically, into a liquid mixture of hydrocarbons (the synthetic biofuel). The main focus of the research is said to be on the gasification stage, since the Fischer Tropsch step is already “well developed”. The GASPAR project will test different gasification strategies in its pilot programs in order to obtain the most cost effective one. The consortium estimates that BTL fuels can competitively replace about 15% of France’s liquid fuel consumption.