Biomass Conversion Pilot Plant

• Storage area for feedstock delivered in totes, drums, or supersacks

• Smaller mobile knife mill for smaller sample preparations

• PFI mill batch pulping for 20–40 grams dry basis

• Two 100 dry kg per hour knife milling systems with dust collection

• Mobile 12" disc refiner with manual plate gap adjustment at .025 mm increments

• Mobile planetary ring-roller mill used for both wet and dry grinding

• Feed surge hoppers and pneumatic conveyance to pretreatment systems and cyclones for milled product collection

• 1-L stirred batch reactor

• 4-L steam-explosion batch reactor, maximum temperature is 238°C at 450 psig saturated steam pressure (reactor is fabricated from Hastelloy C-22)

• 90-L batch paddle-type mixed reactor (Alloy 20 construction) (90 psig MAWP)

• 170-L batch paddle-type mixed reactor (Hastelloy C-22 construction) (350 psig MAWP)

• Continuous horizontal screw-type reactor system with 4 auger reactors in series, capacity of 0.5 tonnes per 24-hour day of dry biomass (140°C–210°C and 3–120-minute residence times) (reactor tubes are fabricated from 316 stainless steel and Hastelloy)

• Continuous vertical reactor, capacity of 0.5–1 tonne per 24-hour day of dry biomass capacity (140°C–210°C and 2–60-minute residence times), with an inline secondary reactor for optional treatment at lower temperatures (reactor tubes are fabricated from Hastelloy C-2000 and 316 stainless steel)

• All reactor systems have multiple options for pretreatment catalysts

• 30-L batch or continuous paddle-type mixed reactor (316 stainless steel construction) (100 psig MAWP)

• 1,900-L batch paddle-type mixed reactor (316L stainless steel construction) (50 psig MAWP) with hot-water jacket

• Four 4,000-L hot-water jacketed paddle reactors for semi-continuous processing at total solids loadings greater than 20% (w/w) (constructed of 304 stainless steel)

• Pilot plant bioreactors that can be ran independently or sequentially consisting of two 160-L fermentation vessels, two 1,500-L fermentation vessels, and four 9,000-L fermentation vessels

• All vessels can be operated in batch, fed-batch, or continuous mode of operation

• Fully instrumented (pressure, temperature, pH, weight [level], dissolved oxygen) and controlled bioreactors at various scales

• Off-gas monitoring with mass-spec

• Capability of aerobic or anaerobic operation

• 316 Stainless steel (MAWP of 50 psig/Full Vacuum)

• Agitated (two impellers per tank) and aerated

• Clean-in-place installed on all bioreactors

• Continuous high-temperature, short-residence-time sterilizer

• Perforated basket filtering centrifuge 120-L bowl, Hastelloy construction, 900 g's

• Perforated basket filtering centrifuge 320-L bowl, 316 stainless steel construction, 900 g's

• Disc stack centrifuge typically used for microbial cell separation, continuous operation capable of both two-phase or three-phase separations, 316 stainless steel, 11,000 g's

• Horizontal solid bowl centrifuge designed for continuous high-g force separation of industrial slurries into liquid and solid phases, 304 stainless steel

• Cross flow filtration currently configured for microfiltration, 18,000 liter/hour circulation rate, 1–3 liter/minute permeate rate depending on feed characteristics, 316 stainless steel construction

• Forced circulation evaporator with continuous feed capabilities handling insoluble solids up to 5 wt percent biomass, 500 lb/h water evaporation rate, 304 stainless steel construction, 75 psig MAWP

• Bench- and pilot-scale biomass chemical impregnation and dewatering systems (screw presses)

Research in the Biomass Conversion Pilot Plant taps into NLR's suite of special-purpose laboratories, including:

• Compositional analysis

• Process engineering and economic analysis

• Molecular biology

• Microscopy analysis

• Rheology and particle size characterization

• High-throughput processing and analysis

• Computational modeling.