What is Bio-Coal?
Biomass has become an increasingly important element for the utility companies in their effort to reduce CO2 emissions. Untreated biomass has significant drawbacks:
- Logistics: Transportation and warehousing cost are high as the energy density is low and the biomass needs to be stored inside due to its nature to absorb water rapidly
- Fuel handling: The physical properties require capital investments to either burn the biomass in a dedicated facility or to process the biomass for co-firing with coal.
- Limitations: Even with considerable investment in the power station infrastructure, untreated biomass and wood pellets can only be co-fired with coal to a limit of 5-10%.
Bio-coal overcomes these limitations by converting the biomass to a fuel which has the characteristics of coal:
- The energy density is significantly increased
- The fuel is hydrophobic and does not require dry storage
- The fuel does not require capital investments to be used in existing power stations.
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Bio-coal can be co-fired with coal above 50%, with possibly no upper limit to the fraction of bio-coal in the mix.