Biomass to Liquids (BtL) via Fischer-Tropsch – A Brief Review
To combat climate change, net emissions of greenhouse gases by human activities, the emissions from fossil resources, must be reduced severely from the current levels. This entails transitioning away from a fossil-based economy to a sustainable economy, including not only energy services and industrial production but also change of land use and agricultural strategies. Some sectors are relatively straightforward to transform with partly electrification, such as industrial heating and cooling, passenger vehicles and the rail system. Long distance trucks, aviation and shipping are however difficult to electrify or decarbonize with the current state of the art. Therefore, transforming these sectors necessarily requires substitution fuels derived from renewable sources, such as lignocellulosic residues and various waste feedstocks. Electricity can contribute to the production of renewable fuels via electrolysis in the so-called power-to-liquid (PtL) configurations.
Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS) is a technique known for about a century, it is a mature technology that converts synthesis gas (CO and H2) into liquid crude readily upgradable to standard transportation fuels. The synthesis gas may be produced from a variety of carbonaceous feedstocks, such as coal, natural gas, biomass, residues or even carbon dioxide. The sustainability of a FT value chain depends on the feedstock used to derive the synthesis gas.
This review summarizes recent experimental, commercial/demo/pilot and techno-economic publications of FT technology based on feedstocks that qualify REDII Annex IX A and with a product focus on sectors deemed more difficult to decarbonize in the short-term, such as long-distance transport, aviation and shipping.