Effect of biomass pretreatment on the product distribution and composition resulting from the hydrothermal liquefaction of short rotation coppice willow

• Study of the effect of pretreatment method on product distribution and composition.
• Willow – ideal crop & biomass feedstock for biofuels production.
• Alkaline pretreatment enhances biocrude productivity, improves quality.
• Biocrude quality: reduced oxygen content, but increased aromatic content.

A major challenge for the implementation of hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) as a continuous process is the formulation of lignocellulosic feedstock, which is prone to phase separation into water and biomass parts when pressurized. One approach to remedy such phase separation is to reduce the dry matter content; however, as this approach is detrimental to process cost efficiency, designing an appropriate pretreatment step to ensure pumpability at high dry matter content is preferable. This paper evaluated the effect of various pretreatment methods on product distribution and composition resulting from the HTL of willow and proposes short rotation coppice as an alternative biomass feedstock for biofuels production. Alkaline–thermal pretreatment, besides making high dry matter pumpable feedstock slurries, also led to an increase in the production of the bio-crude product with an oxygen content lower than 8 wt% and a higher concentration of aromatics and phenolic compounds.