BTG's Pyrolysis Units

BTG has two test facilities available in laboratory in Enschede, the Netherlands. The facilities are used for screening feedstock, process development and optimisation, producing oil samples, and generating engineering data for full scale plants.

• Pilot-plant (up to 200 kg/hr biomass) has been tested from 1997 and since it has produced over 50 tons of pyrolysis oil.
• Pyrolysis screening unit (2-5 kg of biomass/hour) for cost-effective screening tests has been in use since 2005 and contains all major unit operations (reactor, char combustor, pyrolysis oil condenser).

Production Plant

BTG installed its first pyrolysis-oil production plant in Malaysia with the design capacity 2 t of dry biomass per hour. The plant processed Empty Fruit Bunches (EFB), residues from a close palm mill which were originally incinerated without the recovering of heat. The heat required for drying of the EFB (65 wt% moisture) was taken from the pyrolysis plant.
The detailed design of its modular construction and construction of pyrolysis unit took place in the Netherlands in 2004, the unit was shipped to Malaysia in 2005.

The main achievements are:

• 

  more than 1,000 tons of oil have been produced;
• the pyrolysis oil was co-fired, replacing conventional diesel in a waste disposal system located 300 km from site;
• the drying of EFB to 5 wt.% moisture is possible using the excess heat from the pyrolysis process;
• the oil quality can be controlled by the operating conditions;
• the energy recovered from the process can be used effectively for drying the “very” wet EFB, and potentially to generate the electricity required;
• maximum capacity of the plant was about 1.7 t/hr on a daily continuous basis.

More information about our test facilities can be found on the website of the BTG Biomass Technology Group.