Investigation of the combustion and emissions of lignin‐derived aromatic oxygenates in a marine diesel engine

As a hard-to-decarbonize sector, the shipping industry is experiencing demands to accelerate the transition from fossil fuels to alternative low-carbon fuels, to significantly reduce the negative impacts on the environment. Biofuels are regarded as one of the solutions for decarbonization in the marine sector. This paper introduces a lignin-derived drop-in biofuel, 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (2M4PP), from non-edible feedstocks and investigates engine performance using its 10% (by volume) blend with standard diesel fuel (DF) at variable engine speeds and loads. Results show insignificant difference between the in-cylinder pressures of the proposed blend and DF. The diesel-2M4PP blend emits less carbon monoxide (CO) and nitric oxide (NOx) than DF at all speeds by up to 39.6% and 10.7% respectively, although its brake-specific fuel consumption (BSFC) is higher. A Ricardo wave model, which is validated with engine experimental data at 2400 rpm speed and full load, is investigated by adjusting injection pressure, injection timing, injection duration and nozzle diameter. The optimal parameters, i.e., 214 bar injection pressure, 6° injection timing, 41.4° injection duration, and 0.37 mm injector orifice, lead to the best engine performance with improved brake power, reduced NOx emissions, and limited influence on BSFC and hydrocarbon emissions compared to DF

Environmental economics of lignin derived transport fuels

This paper explores the environmental and economic aspects of fast pyrolytic conversion of lignin, obtained from 2G ethanol plants, to transport fuels for both the marine and automotive markets. Various scenarios are explored, pertaining to aggregation of lignin from several sites, alternative energy carries to replace lignin, transport modalities, and allocation methodology. The results highlight two critical factors that ultimately determine the economic and/or environmental fuel viability. The first factor, the logistics scheme, exhibited the disadvantage of the centralized approach, owing to prohibitively expensive transportation costs of the low energy-dense lignin. Life cycle analysis (LCA) displayed the second critical factor related to alternative energy carrier selection. Natural gas (NG) chosen over additional biomass boosts well-to-wheel greenhouse gas emissions (WTW GHG) to a level incompatible with the reduction targets set by the U.S. renewable fuel standard (RFS). Adversely, the process' economics revealed higher profits vs. fossil energy carrier. (C) 2017 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd

Fluid catalytic cracking process of crude lignin oil (CLO)

This invention relates to a process for the upgrading of crude lignin oil (CLO) with a fluid catalytic cracking unit

A method for obtaining a lignin oil composition using a compressed gas and acid assisted process

The present invention relates to a process for the production of a liquid lignin composition, in particular to a method for obtaining a lignin composition using a compressed gas and acid assisted process, wherein a lignocellulosic biomass feedstock is treated with a polar organic solvent using an inorganic acid to assist in the release of lignin into the polar organic solvent and the use of compressed gas to keep the polar organic solvent in its liquid phase

Evaluation of environmental and economic hotspots and value creation in multi-product lignocellulosic biorefinery

This paper presents systematic analysis of value creation chains and their economic and environmental hotspots within a multi-product biorefinery with the primary goal to promote sustainable biorefining. Lignocellulosic biorefinery producing ethanol, crude lignin oil (CLO) and electricity was analysed. The methodology involves transformation of technological model into an input-output one with the use of matrix notation for the analysis of economic and environmental attributes along value chains. The results show that the accumulation of biomass through energy supply grows by a factor of 1.2 for ethanol and electricity, and by 1.4 for CLO value chains, of which solid recovery, lignin solvolysis and biomass pretreatment are responsible for the most significant growth indicating the necessity for energy optimization of those steps. The analysis reveals a superfluous role of infrastructure in pretreatment and lignin drying processes. Of infrastructural costs related to the equipment required for the pretreatment step, wastewater treatment (WWT) facility is responsible for 58%, and of the costs of lignin drying, the combined heat and power plant is responsible for 56%. WWT determines 75% of infrastructural GHG emissions attributable to pretreatment, and 57% of those related to lignin drying. This points at an advantage of a biorefinery concept involving the removal of lignin fraction before the valorization of carbohydrates. Another hotspot, the lignin solvolysis technology, shows environmental and economic advantages of its further optimization in terms of production costs and GHG emissions. The proposed method is helpful for analyzing economic and environmental hotspots in new biorefinery concepts and integration pathways

Renewable thiol-yne ‘click’ networks based on propargylated lignin for adhesive resin applications

In this study, the development of lignin-based resins for wood adhesion applications was demonstrated. We investigated two lignin fractions: commercial Protobind 1000 lignin and methanol-soluble Protobind 1000 lignin fraction after mild solvolysis. Although lignin has previously been incorporated into various cross-linked systems, this is the first report on lignin-based thermosets obtained via thiol–yne “click” chemistry. In this approach, lignin was functionalized with terminal alkyne groups followed by cross-linking with a multifunctional thiol, resulting in polymeric network formation. The influence of the curing conditions on the resin characteristics and performance was studied, by varying the amount of reactive monomeric diluents. Additionally, a post-curing strategy utilizing the Claisen rearrangement was investigated. These resins were tested as a wood adhesive and were proven to possess a desirable performance, comparable to the state-of-art phenol-formaldehyde resins. Lignin-based thiol–yne resins turn out to be an alternative to phenol-formaldehyde resins, currently used as adhesives and coatings. Although it is possible to use lignin in phenol-formaldehyde resins, lignin addition is compromising the resin’s performance. The main benefits over the phenol-formaldehyde approach are that higher lignin loadings are possible to achieve, and no volatiles are emitted during the resin processing and use

Lignocellulosic multi-product biorefinery:Evaluation of economic and environmental hotspots and value creation

The slow progress in the commercialization of lignocellulosic biorefineries involving the biochemical conversion pathway points at the immaturity of existing biorefinery concepts. The current research suggests a systematic analysis of value creation chains and their economic and environmental hotspots within a multi-product biorefinery, having as the primary goal to promote sustainable biorefining processes. A lignocellulosic biorefinery producing ethanol, crude lignin oil and electricity was analyzed. Our methodology involves the transformation of a technological biorefinery model into the input-output one and the use of matrix notation to track the accumulation of economic and environmental attributes along biorefinery value chains. Three categories of indicators are chosen to reveal the most critical processing stages of every value chain, namely: (i) monetary and environmental profiles, (ii) the role of feedstock and (iii) infrastructure required to support main processes. Principal biorefinery hotspots refer to the biomass pretreatment, solids recovery and lignin drying stages, which is due mainly to wastewater treatment accompanying these processes. The other hotspot, lignin solvolysis technology, shows the environmental advantage of decreasing methanol content in the produced lignin oil. The proposed method is worth being applied to the analysis of new biorefinery concepts and new integration pathways

Mild thermolytic solvolysis of technical lignins in polar organic solvents to a crude lignin oil

A mild thermal solvolysis process using alcohols for the valorization of technical lignin into crude lignin oil (CLO) is presented. The solubilization process results in lower molecular weight lignin fragments (1250-1550 g/mol cf. 2500 g/mol of parent lignin), while rejecting heavy compounds and other solid impurities. The quantitative and qualitative influence of reaction temperature (100-350 °C), residence time (0.5-4 h), lignin:solvent ratio (1:15-1:2 w/v) and alcohol solvent is investigated. At high lignin loading (ratio < 1:5 w/v) and optimum conditions for lignin solubilization (T = 200 °C, t = 0.5 h), the condensation reactions and solvent consumption is minimized. Methanol exhibits the highest solvolytic efficacy solubilizing also some heavier lignin fractions originating from condensation reactions of reactive intermediates. Hansen solubility parameters are employed to discuss the effect of solvent on the solubilization process. Gel permeation chromatography and heteronuclear single quantum coherence NMR of solubilized fractions revealed cleavage of β-Ο-4 bonds during thermal solvolysis, explaining the molecular weight reduction. Methanol is the most favourable solvent and is utilized in solubilization of 5 different biorefinery lignins. In all cases, this led to CLO with a lower molecular weight of the lignin fragments, a lower polydispersity and an increased hydroxyl group content