“Our mission is to turn raw technology into practical solutions for the market’s energy needs,” says Vann Bush, managing director for the gasification and gas processing group at GTI. “We have created solutions that include our own gasification technologies but we’re also a technology development partner for industry.” To do this, GTI contracts with private companies, works with state and federal government agencies and regulators, and provides investment opportunities within the energy sector and other industries.
GTI is involved in gasification of fossil and renewable fuels, natural gas exploration—mostly from unconventional sources including shale, tight gas sands and coal beds—distribution and pipeline technology, and new technology development, deployment and commercialization. Although the institute’s headquarters are in Des Plaines, Ill., it also has a group working on biomass gasification and other areas of biomass conversion in Birmingham, Ala., a research and development facility in Oklahoma and offices in Washington, D.C., and on the East and West Coast, Bush says.
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“My business unit is one of the four R&D sectors here at GTI,” says Bush, who works at the GTI campus in Des Plaines, where there are 28 specialized laboratories and facilities. “My focus is on the conversion of hydrocarbon materials into products whether they be fuels—liquid or gaseous fuels—chemicals or power. In my area, our business revolves around thermochemical processes and we have a group that’s devoted to gas conditioning and treatment technologies as well as a generation of gases and liquids from solid feedstocks. About half of our business is biomass related at present and about half is coal and natural gas related.”
The number of biomass and coal projects fluctuates from year to year but historically there is a good balance between the two, Bush says. “There is a lot of interest right now in the renewables area, of course, because of the carbon management issues, and we’re seeing changes in the kind of products that people are looking for from biomass,” he says. “The past couple of years, the focus has been on liquid fuels/transportation fuels so there is a lot of activity in our shop and around the world dealing with the conversion of biomass material into replacement transportation fuels.” Prior to that there was more interest in power and combined-heat-and-power applications from renewable resources, he adds.
GTI in Action
GTI’s participation in projects can take on several forms, depending on the client’s needs.
“Industry often comes to us with a technology that they need to pass through the development cycle and we partner with them to carry their technology through the stages of development and work alongside them,” Bush says. “Some of the technologies that have sort of a GTI imprint on them are developed by our own staff and some of the technologies with which we are associated are the development of our industrial partners and we assist, doing testing or developmental work in cooperation with them.”
GTI developed a fluidized bed gasification solution for coal applications and a fluidized bed solution for biomass applications and both have been licensed. “Those technologies are now commercial offerings,” Bush says. “We continue to provide technology support for those partners and at the same time we will work with other folks’ technologies from the venture-funded type organizations like Great Point Energy, who brought their technology to GTI for development, or Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, who brought their technology to GTI for pilot development.”
GTI worked with Finnish companies UPM-Kymmene Corp. and Carbona/Andritz to help them develop technology to make biodiesel from wood waste.
UPM, a global forestry company, and Andritz Carbona, a gasification technology provider, are cooperating on a biomass-to-liquid plant that would convert wood waste to biodiesel. The process involves gasifying biomass, purifying the gas and processing it in a Fischer-Tropsch liquefaction plant. The plant would combine carbon monoxide and hydrogen in a catalytic reaction and convert them into liquid hydrocarbons.
“We were looking for a gasifier with significant size, capable of gasifying biomass with oxygen under pressure, and there are not that many pilot plants available,” says Petri Kukkonen, director of biofuel at UMP. Andritz/Carbona secured access to GTI’s pilot gasification facility for the project, which saved the companies $7 million to $10 million and about two years time, says Jim Patel, president of Carbona Corp., which is a majority owned subsidiary of Andritz Oy. “GTI saved us a lot of money and time because they have existing equipment that we could use and add on to,” Patel says. “We used GTI’s equipment and modified it and then we added a gas cleaning system of our own design.”
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