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Content archived on 2024-06-18

Technical and environmental analysis of advanced strategies for the energy<br/>valorisation of biomass

Final Report Summary - ENV-BIO (Technical and environmental analysis of advanced strategies for the energyvalorisation of biomass.)

As described in the Grant Agreement Annex I “Description of Work” of the ENV-BIO Marie Curie IRSES project on “Technical and environmental analysis of advanced strategies for the energy valorization of biomass”, the main objective of the project was:

“Development of advanced thermochemical processes (namely advanced combustion, gasification and pyrolysis) for the energy valorization of biomass and assessment of the environmental impacts associated with alternative strategies in the use of biomass for energy purposes”.

This general objective was attained by establishing an exchange program participated by both junior and senior researchers aimed at initiating or strengthening collaborations between research groups working in the field of “biomass energy and environmental analysis”. The project was initiated with a general virtual meeting, the design of a website (http://eabiolab.industriales.upm.es/IRSES/index.html) containing all relevant information and the production of a series of documents to facilitate coordination and communication between participants, including partnership agreement, corporate image strategy and logo, communication protocol and a simplified operating procedure for the ENVBio project. All these documents were uploaded onto the repository of the project for consultation.

A series of secondments were established aimed at complying with the specific objectives and tasks described under each of the 4 Work Packages (WP) composing the original project proposal. These activities aimed at promoting transfer of knowledge between research groups, facilitating access to research infrastructures, favoring synergistic effects between researchers from different backgrounds and locations in the broad field of biomass energy and environmental protection, evaluating commercial opportunities and securing the ground for future collaborations and strategic alliances. A wide range of technologies were used in the investigations including slurry, packed bed, entrained flow, rotary, fluidized bed porous media reactors and ceramic reactors, as well as analytic pyrolysis techniques like Py-GC-MS and TGA-DTG-MS. These devices were used to investigate thermochemical transformation of different biomass types including combustion, gasification, torrefaction and pyrolysis.

All these actions were performed by members of the ENV-Bio IRSES consortium that were participated, from the European side, by the following institutions: Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Spain); Universidad de Castilla La Mancha (Spain); University of Bath (United Kingdom); Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece); and École des Mines d'Albi-Carmaux (France). In an attempt to increase the number of exchange actions, University College of London (UK) joined the consortium in the second half of the project (April 2015). The consortium included two additional Universities from emerging countries that were eligible for funding: Universidad Técnica Federico Sta. María (Chile) and Tsinghua University (China). Three more Universities from industrialized countries also participated but were not eligible for funding as follows: Stony Brook University (USA), University of Toronto (Canada) and Tohoku University (Japan).

In total, 36 actions in the form of secondments were performed over the 4 year duration of the ENV-Bio project, totaling 52.29 person*months (p*m) for an aggregated budget of 106,302.00 €. As detailed in the “REPORT ON THE WORK PERFORMED AND RESULTS”, 11 of these secondments were performed by researchers from UPM (Spain) totaling 9.87 p*m; 5 secondments by UCLM (Spain) totaling 14.85 p*m; 1 secondments by University of Bath (UK) totaling 0.62 p*m; 3 secondments by researchers from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece) totaling 1.63 p*m; 5 secondments from École des Mines d'Albi-Carmaux (France) totaling 6.27 P*m; and 2 secondments from University College of London (UK) totaling 2.06 p*m. UCLM and UPM (Spain) also received researchers from Universidad Técnica Federico Sta. María (Chile) totalling 5.61 p*m; researchers from Tsinghua University (China) were hosted by UCL and UB totalling 5.63 p*m and researchers from University of Toronto (Canada) were received at UCLM (Spain) for 1.67 p*m.

The specific activities undertaken in each of these actions have led to a series of specific achievements. A detailed description of each of these achievements is included in Deliverable D11: Technical progress on project objectives, including:
- Scientific publications: conference papers, journal papers, books and technical reports
- Research actions: experimental research activities, joint utilization of equipment and infrastructures, presentations, meetings and informal interactions.
- Academic actions: exchange of students and researchers, lecturing activities,
- Strategic alliances: drafting of exchange programs between institutions
- Commercial developments: patents, commercial interactions with companies
- Joint research proposals: national and international calls

Furthermore, a list of Deliverables in the form of Technical Reports were produced by members of the ENV-Bio project describing the state-of-the-art in various issues related to the main objective of the project including: D1: Comparative analysis of advanced combustion processes and plants; D2: Report: comparative analysis of biomass gasification processes and plants; D3-Report: comparative analysis of fast pyrolysis processes and plants; D4-Report: Adapting existing plants based on experience from different partners; D5-Report: Commercial potential of ATP employed by members of the consortium in different participating countries; D6-Report: Critical analysis of environmental LCA for standard biomass to energy processes and technologies; D7-Report: LCA guidelines for the analysis of specific ATP technologies; D8-Report: drafting of an inventory database for advanced biomass combustion, gasification and gas pyrolysis processes; D9-Report: LCA of ATP processes and technologies; D12-Report: assessment of commercial opportunities, analysis of future collaborations and implementation of strategic alliances.

A detailed description of the activities performed and the objectives achieved are included in the Secondment Activity Plans (SAP) and Secondment Reports (SR) that were produced as a result of each of the actions performed under the ENV-Bio IRSES project. Details about technical progress and economic performance throughout the project are detailed in “D10-Report: Technical progress on project, objectives and refining of future actions”, covering the first half the project between January 2013 and December 2014 and in “D11-Report: technical progress on project objectives” covering the second half between January 2015 and December 2016. All these documents have been uploaded onto the European Commission website for dissemination and justification purposes. An interactive website with information about the project, its participating members and containing all those documents not subjected to diffusion restrictions was setup and it is available. Find attached the following documents:
- 00 ENVBIO Kickoff Coordination
- 01 ENVBIO Annex 1 Initial coordination actions
- 02 ENVBIO YEAR 1 Actions and achievements
- 03 ENVBIO YEAR 2 Actions and achievements
- 04 ENVBIO YEAR 3 Actions and achievements
- 05 ENVBIO YEAR 4 Actions and achievements
- 06 ENVBIO IRSES Table of Achievements
- 07 ENV BIO biomass technologies
final1-01-attachments-final-publishable-summary-report.rar