Research & Development/Test Facilities

TRI’s steam reforming technology has evolved and matured from bench scale to commercial scale via a coordinated program of sequential and parallel development steps.utilizing a network of private and public research facilities. The bulk of the developmental work for the proprietary technology has been conducted on Manufacturing and Technology Conversion International Inc’s Process Development Units (PDU) in Baltimore, MD. Fluidization dynamic and liquor injection simulation studies have been performed at Pemm-Corp, a well-respected fluid bed consultant and cold flow modeling company. Black liquor trials have been conducted at the University of Utah’s steam reforming process development facility. Recent biomass steam reforming screening trials have been carried out in a bench scale test unit at the Energy and Environmental Research Center, in North Dakota.

The feedstocks tested to date include various spent liquors (kraft, sulfite, soda and straw spent liquors; distillery spent wash) and solid biomass and carbonaceous matter, including paper mill sludge, wood chips, rice hulls, saw dust, grape plant prunings, pistachio nut shells, municipal solid waste, refuse derived fuel , sewage sludge, lignite and sub-bituminous coals, low-level mixed waste surrogates, wood wastes, switchgrass pellets, poultry litter, swine waste and olive pits. These tests helped establish the feasibility and fuel flexibility of the technology.

In order to verify and validate TRI’s most recent commercial-scale process and design improvements, TRI is currently building a pilot plant nominally rated at 1 MWth. Fluid dynamic and gasification process scaling parameters were employed to design this pilot plant so that the test results are directly and immediately applicable to the design of next-generation commercial scale systems. Several biomass feedstock characterization test campaigns in this unit are scheduled for early 2008.

Photos of the various test facilities are shown below.