BioFuels Journal

East Hills, NY—Pall Corporation (NYSE: PLL) a global leader in filtration, separation and purification, announced Dec. 17 its strategic involvement with UOP, a Honeywell company, in a US Department of Energy sponsored alternative fuels project.

UOP selected Pall and other partners to develop a new process to produce stablized pyrolysis oil, a greenhouse-gas-neutral renewable resource produced from biomass, the residual organic feedstocks from agriculture and forest products.

The oil is used in power generation and chemical production, as well as heating oil and transportation fuel applications.

Pall’s contribution to cost-effectively producing and stabilizing pyrolysis oils can help reduce reliance on fossil fuels.

Together with UOP and its partners, Pall’s scientific team will develop a select range of high-temperature filtration products and a process to regenerate spent filter elements.

UOP selected Pall for this program because of the Company’s leadership in advanced hot gas and liquid hydrocarbon separations.

“Working with UOP to develop filtration and separations technologies for alternative fuels is a prime example of Pall’s commitment to enabling a greener future for our customers,” said Greg Heilbrunn, Sr. VP, Global Marketing.

Quoted according to US DOE guidelines, Pall’s two year contract with UOP is valued at approximately $250K, of which 40% is hardware and 60% is technical services.

Pyrolysis oil is produced when the hydrogen generated by biomass is rapidly heated to approximately 450-650 ̊ C (842-1202 ̊ F) without air in a reactor.

In liquid form, the oil can be used as heating oil or for chemical production.

However, pyrolysis oil tends to be unstable, as its viscosity increases over time.

A root cause of this instability is char materials (including alkyl metal particles) found in the hot gas downstream of the reactor and in the liquid that condenses from the gas.

UOP, Pall and the rest of the partnership team will evolve and demonstrate separations technologies to remove the char materials and improve the chemistry of the produced hydrocarbon.

A customized test apparatus will be installed in a small scale pyrolysis reactor at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, CO. UOP already anticipates extending the study to a full scale demonstration on an existing pyrolysis process at an Ensyn Technologies Inc. facility.

For more information, call 516-801-9282.

See Related Websites/Articles:

• UOP
• Pall Corp.
• NREL

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