【Ten Years of Rapid Development in Chemical Engineering Equipment】2188-2025: Key Technologies and Applications for the Large-Scale Production of Liquid Fuels and Carbon Materials from Biomass

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Give praise and encouragement to the achievements made in China’s chemical engineering technology and equipment; your participation in discussions is the greatest encouragement. **********************【Ten Years of Great Development in Chemical Engineering Equipment】Continuous updates and summaries are available; feel free to join the discussions at https://bbs.hcbbs.com/thread-3576046-1-1.html *****************The large-scale production of liquid fuels and carbon materials from biomass is one of the key measures to reduce China’s dependence on foreign oil and to address the challenges related to carbon emission reduction. Biomass pyrolysis is an effective method for the large-scale production of liquid fuels and carbon materials. However, this technology faces challenges such as uncontrollable pyrolysis processes, long production routes, and outdated core reaction equipment, which makes industrialization difficult. The technical achievement titled “Key Technologies and Applications for the Production of High-Quality Liquid Fuels and Carbon Materials through Controlled Short-Process Pyrolysis of Biomass,” developed through collaboration between Southeast University, the Institute of Forest Product Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Forestry, and other institutions, has brought hope in solving this problem. It recently won the First Prize for Scientific and Technological Progress at the 2024 China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation Science and Technology Awards. 　　This achievement was developed by a project team led by Professor Xiao Rui from Southeast University, through nearly 20 years of technical research and development. First, the technical team developed a controlled biomass pyrolysis technique based on the regulation of the effective hydrogen-to-carbon ratio. They discovered the key chain-induced effect by which oxygen-containing radicals undergo polycondensation to form carbon during the pyrolysis process, clarified the exchange mechanism and interactions between oxygen and carbon radicals, and revealed the polycondensation mechanism involving carbon-centered coupling of oxygen-containing radicals. The project team has also developed control techniques based on the effective hydrogen-carbon ratio, such as improving this ratio through the co-pyrolysis of waste hydrogen-rich materials with biomass to suppress polycondensation, and promoting the polycondensation of macromolecular tar into carbon by injecting biochar to increase carbon content. The content of heavy tar in the pyrolysis steam is reduced by more than 10 times, the content of light carbonyl compounds increases by 2 times, and the biochar yield improves by 40%. 　　Secondly, the technical team developed a new short-process in-situ upgrading technology for pyrolysis oil vapor and pyrolytic carbon. They developed a novel technique that utilizes the reactive oxygen-containing carbonyl groups in pyrolysis oil vapors for in-situ coupling of carbonation and catalytic stepwise deoxygenation isomerization, enabling the efficient synthesis of straight-chain and branched-chain components of biofuels, with a carbon yield of 28%. The technical team designs the fuel based on the relationship between oxygen location and combustion characteristics, directing oxygen from the side chains to the main chain in pyrolyzed oil vapors to produce long-chain alcohol ether oxygen-containing fuels; adding 10% of such fuels to diesel can reduce soot emissions by over 60%. They also developed oxygen-vacancy multi-level pore catalysts with \"oxygen absorption\" functionality, enabling directional control of oxygen-containing groups; they discovered the mechanism by which oxygen-containing radicals rapidly etch pyrolytic carbon at high temperatures, and pioneered a new method for activating pyrolytic carbon using self-produced carbon dioxide and water. Compared with traditional processes, this method reduces the activation time by 10 times and lowers the production cost of activated carbon by over 60%. 　　Finally, the technical team developed a compact integrated biomass equipment. They developed a new method for the integrated construction of reactor zones through coupled coupling, which integrates different reactions by enabling the cyclic flow and reaction of particles in various reaction zones, thereby achieving an integrated process that includes controlled pyrolysis, self-activation of pyrolytic carbon, and in-situ catalytic conversion of pyrolytic oil vapors to produce high-quality liquid fuels. The technical team has also developed coupling enhancement technologies for flow-heat transfer-reaction, such as high-speed jets and hot carbon cycles, which improve reaction efficiency and processing capacity per unit volume, resulting in a more compact reactor structure. Based on this, the technical team developed various types of compact integrated reaction equipment, such as single-bed fluidized-bed internal circulation and dual-fluidized-bed external circulation systems suitable for different applications, and created a series of such products. They also developed pyrolysis mobile units, establishing a new model of \"decentralized processing and centralized refinement\" to address the challenges related to the collection, storage, and transportation of biomass. 　　Expert evaluations conducted by the Petrochemical Federation have shown that the overall technology of this project is at an internationally advanced level; in particular, the technologies for producing biofuels and ether ester oxygen-containing fuels through the directed pyrolysis of biomass, as well as the internal-circulation serial-bed reactor technology, are at the international leading level. To date, this project has yielded 71 authorized invention patents, including 2 U.S. patents ； Led the development of 5 industry and group standards, and published over 200 papers. The achievements of this project have been put into industrial use in over 20 provinces including Jiangsu, Anhui, and Henan, and have also been introduced to 8 other countries such as the Czech Republic and Spain. Nineteen production lines have been established, enabling the conversion of more than 3.2 million tons of biomass each year, with the result of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by over 5.2 million tons. Liquid fuel and carbon material products have been applied in various fields such as energy, energy storage, and the chemical industry, contributing to the industrialization of the high-value utilization of biomass in China.