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A new start-up company is to build a pilot project to demonstrate a technique to produce aromatics from cellulosic biomass in one step.

Anellotech has been set up by George Huber, a chemical engineering professor at the University of Massachusetts (UMass), and has licensed the catalytic fast-pyrolysis single-step technology from the university.

“My goal in developing the process was to come up with a very simple process for biomass conversion where all the chemistry occurs in a single step.  To make a fuel you need a very simple process,” Huber tells tce.

Cellulosic biomass, usually wood, is fed into a fluidised bed reactor and rapidly heated to 600°C. The wood undergoes pyrolysis forming oxygenated vapour compounds. A proprietary zeolite catalyst in the reactor converts the compounds into the gasoline range aromatics benzene, xylenes and toluene, which are then cooled. High heating rates and a high catalyst-to-feed ratio is required to ensure that the compounds formed by pyrolysis are catalysed before they thermally decompose to form coke. Researchers have proposed burning any resulting coke to heat the biomass.

Huber says that the main advantage of the process is that it has much lower capital costs than conventional gasification and fermentation techniques, and the aromatics produced are more valuable than ethanol. Anellotech’s ceo, David Sudolsky, adds that the products of the catalytic fast-pyrolysis process require no further processing, unlike, for example, biocrude, which is too acidic and requires much further processing to make useful products. Their thermochemical reaction uses no water, unlike ethanol production, an environmental benefit. The products are identical to those produced from petrochemicals and can therefore use existing infrastructure.

“We don’t need to process the raw materials before use either, with acid-washing or whatever,” Sudolsky tells tce. “We can use the wood directly.”

He says Anellotech is currently focussing on raising the venture capital for the pilot project to prove the technology. The pilot project should be up and running by 2011, with a small-scale commercial plant following in 2014.

“Once the technology is proven we will look at licensing negotiations. We expect most of the plants to be built by licencees,” says Sudolsky, adding that the government discussions on the introduction of a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions have led to much interest in greener ways of producing chemicals. Anellotech has already had interest from some oil companies and hopes to build on this when the technology is proven.