According to the characteristics of the above four feedstocks, the proper conditions may be compromised.
Currently feedstock accounts for around one third of the costs associated with gasification, and in combination with the above, an increase in feedstock flexibility would greatly help to reduce the over-costs of this technology (J. Rogers, unpublished data).
Using the normalising assumptions above, a survey of feedstock prices in Europe was undertaken for straw, waste paper, energy crops, imported biomass, mill residues, forest residues, pulplogs and sawlogs.
XMG recovery, shown in Figure 3C, is above 95% for all feedstocks at severities below 4.1 but decreases above a severity of 4.1 due to degradation.
There are also climatic and feedstock reasons why the above comparison is not a fair one.
In addition to the above, there is a broader challenge to the vision of UK-sourced feedstocks for biofuels that has not yet been widely recognised.
However, no information was provided on the feedstock composition (lipids, proteins, carbohydrates) and hence, direct comparison of results with the above study may not be appropriate.
Due to a lack of a glucose-to-fructose isomerization ability, the composites are unable to form the above products from the glucose resources (glucose and cellulose), ethyl glucoside being the dominant product from these feedstocks.
Rice straw is one of the largest biomass feedstocks, and potentially 730 billion liters of bioethanol can be produced per year from the above quantity of available biomass.
But as ink and paper are to the desktop printer, feedstock is to the 3D printer, and the composition of those feedstocks is also of environmental concern.
