Patent ID: 9416077
Filing Date: 2016-08-16
CPC Classification: C07C,Y02E

Claim Text:
1. An integrated plant to improve carbon utilization of carbon molecules from gasified woody biomass to be converted into methanol, comprising: a biomass gasifier comprising a radiant high heat-flux reactor configured to react woody biomass received from a biomass feed system in moist fine particle form at a temperature of at least 950 degrees C., where the biomass gasifier has a steam supply input and one or more heat sources, and in the presence of steam, the woody biomass in moist fine particle form is reacted in the radiant high heat-flux reactor in a rapid biomass gasification reaction to produce at least syngas components, including hydrogen (H2), carbon dioxide (CO2), and carbon monoxide (CO); a hydrocarbon reforming reactor configured to receive a methane-based gas, where the hydrocarbon reforming reactor is in parallel to and cooperates with the radiant high heat-flux reactor to produce a high-quality combined syngas mixture for methanol synthesis between the resultant reactant products coming from the two reactors, wherein the hydrocarbon reforming reactor provides 1) hydrogen gas, 2) a hydrogen-rich syngas composition, in which a ratio of hydrogen (H2) to carbon monoxide (CO) is higher than a ratio generally needed for methanol synthesis, and 3) any combination of the two, to be mixed with a potentially carbon dioxide (CO2) rich syngas composition produced by the biomass gasifier, in which a ratio of hydrogen to carbon dioxide (H2:CO2) is higher than the ratio generally needed for methanol synthesis in order to convert greater than 60% of the carbon-based molecules in the woody biomass received from the biomass feed system into methanol by way of a methanol synthesis plant; one or more detectors that are geographically located on the same site as the radiant high heat-flux reactor, wherein the one or more detectors are configured to measure a sulfur content of the woody biomass and are configured to ensure a minimized sulfur content of the woody biomass to less than 0.05% by weight such that the integrated plant operates without a water-gas-shift unit and without an acid gas removal unit because the methanol synthesis plant converts the carbon dioxide into methanol and the one or more detectors ensure that the woody biomass has a minimized sulfur content; and a sulfur removal unit configured to remove at least sulfur-based gas contaminants from the syngas components coming from the radiant high heat-flux reactor, where the sulfur removal unit is downstream of the biomass gasifier and the hydrocarbon reforming reactor and are upstream of the methanol synthesis plant; and where the combined syngas mixture from the biomass gasifier and the hydrocarbon reforming reactor are fed to the methanol synthesis plant, such that a majority of the carbon dioxide (CO2) produced by the biomass gasification reaction and the hydrogen (H2) produced by the hydrocarbon reforming reactor are synthesized into methanol.