Licella produces drop-in biofuels from a wide range of biomass and uses a supercritical water-based technology and catalysts to break up biomass and reform it into a drop-in fuel hydrocarbon.
The compelling features of supercritical are several:
1. It uses all of the biomass, including lignin. So, higher yields, fewer discussions on how to monetize lignin.
2. It provides all its own process heat and water. In fact, it is a net producer of water — almost unheard of for any fuel technology regardless of feedstock.
3. It produces a far more stable bio-oil than traditional pyrolysis — because the process temperature is set low enough not to break carbon double bonds and create unstable free radicals in the oil — those that continue to react long after the actual processing has finished.
4. It produces a blendable intermediate for traditional crude that works in traditional infrastructure.
5. At scale, it is expected to be competitive with fossil petroleum (using the Tapis [Malaysian] oil benchmark) — yet a scale compatible with known regional timber supplies with no need to transit biomass over long distances at great expense.
6. It has a small physical footprint compared to fermentation technologies because of the continuous flow design, and a processing time measured in minutes versus days.
Licella CEO Len Humphreys gave this illuminating update at ABLC 2017 in Washington.
