As part of the activities of an Initiation Fondecyt Project of Dr. Catherine Tessini, which is related to analytical methodologies to characterize bio-oil that is extracted through biomass pyrolysis, the seminar on Pyrolysis Biomass Advances and their Applications was held on April 4, in which students, academicians and the business sector learned the basics and benefits of this extraction technology.
The course was attended by Dr. Dietrich Meier, specialist of the Heinrich von Thünen Institute in Germany; Dr. Catherine Tessini of the Chemistry Department of Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Chile; and Dr. Cristina Segura, Head of Bioenergy Department of the Technological Development Unit (UDT), who coordinated the activity.
“Dr. Meier was invited to participate in this seminar. He has an experience of over 30 years both in the analytical and process aspects. We thought it was very important to conduct this dissemination activity for the community including academicians and and the business sector”, said Dr. Segura. The scientist explained that the idea was also to take the opportunity to create links between the knowledge of Dr. Meier together with the work conducted at UDT regarding biomass pyrolysis and all applications that are being implemented and developed for the country.
The experience of UDT in biomass pyrolysis started in 2008, mainly to obtain crude bio-oil. “We have good facilities including a continuous pilot plant of 20 kilos/hour, which is an interesting capacity and we have worked in different application lines of bio-oil, not only for fuel, but also led to the production of chemical products with high commercial value”, said Dr. Segura.
The Head of Bionergy Department of UDT explained that the aim of this technology is to convert solid biomass into a liquid to be used as a substitute for oil. “Ultimately, we can obtain fuels- mainly fuel oil No. 6 of an industrial nature- and chemical products with this technology, as bio-oil is a raw material to obtain chemical products with higher added value, such as organic acids- one of the research lines at UDT- and pyrolytic lignin, basically to obtain natural resins for boards”, said Dr. Segura.
Source: PanoramaUdeC
