Grant: Applied Research and Development Grants - Level 1

Woodland Biofuels Inc. has developed and patented a low-cost process technology using gasification and a series of catalytic reactions to convert waste wood and other sources of biomass into renewable fuels. Woodland's demonstration plant is located at the Bioindustrial Innovation Centre in Sarnia, Ontario and in 2019, the federal government of Canada announced an investment of nearly $5 million to enable Woodland to build its first commercial plant. In preparation of this launch, Woodland seeks to determine the optimum supply of waste wood feedstock(s) to be used in their gasification process. Identification of the best waste wood sources is of critical importance as the quality of the feedstock drives yield and quality of end products and has direct relevance to how the commercial plant will be designed and operated. Gasification is a thermochemical process in which biomass is converted into synthesis gases (syngas). Many gasification processes require high temperatures, as much as 1300 °C, but Woodland's process takes advantage of a downstream catalytic reformer to reduce the temperature needed to drive the gasification conversion. The gasification process can be harnessed for heat and power applications and syngas constituents can be used as building blocks for production of renewable chemicals such as ammonia and fuels. Because of this promise, there is great interest globally in gasification. However, a key bottleneck to the continued progress of biomass conversion to fuels and chemicals via gasification is the quality and logistics of biomass feedstocks, including waste wood. Utilization of different types of biomass in a gasification process can be beneficial to Woodland in terms of feedstock flexibility, but with this benefit comes challenges around design and operation of the commercial facility as well as potential negative consequences on the quality of the resulting syngas. The overall goal is to evaluate the quality of waste wood available in Ontario and to use these results to inform the design and operation of Woodland Biofuel's commercial gasification facility.