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Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy

Operated by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC

This report is available at no cost from the National Renewable Energy

Laboratory (NREL) at www.nrel.gov/publications.

Contract No. DE-AC36-08GO28308

MBMS Monitoring of 

ClearFuels/Rentech PDU

Cooperative Research and 

Development Final Report

CRADA Number: CRD-10-386

NREL Technical Contact: Daniel Carpenter

CRADA Report

NREL/TP-5100-62189

June 2014
NOTICE

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Cover Photos: (left to right) photo by Pat Corkery, NREL 16416, photo from SunEdison, NREL 17423, photo by Pat Corkery, NREL 

16560, photo by Dennis Schroeder, NREL 17613, photo by Dean Armstrong, NREL 17436, photo by Pat Corkery, NREL 17721.

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This report is available at no cost from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) at www.nrel.gov/publications.

Cooperative Research and Development Final Report

In accordance with Requirements set forth in Article XI.A(3) of the CRADA document, this 

document is the final CRADA report, including a list of Subject Inventions, to be forwarded to 

the Office of Science and Technical Information as part of the commitment to the public to 

demonstrate results of federally funded research.

CRADA Number: CRD-10-386 

Parties to the Agreement: ClearFuels Technology 

CRADA Title: MBMS Monitoring of ClearFuels/Rentech PDU

Joint Work Statement Funding Table Showing DOE Commitment: 

Estimated Costs NREL Shared Resources

TOTALS $ 770,972.00

Abstract of CRADA Work: 

NREL will provide detailed on-site biomass gasifier syngas monitoring, using the NREL 

transportable Molecular Beam Mass Spectrometer (MBMS). This information will be used to 

optimize the parameters of the gasifier operation, insuring the quality of the syngas made in the 

Rentech gasifier and its compatibility with catalytic conversion to fuels.

Summary of Research Results: 

ClearFuels Technology and Rentech were awarded Recovery Act funding, through DOE’s 

Integrated Biorefinery platform (IBR), to integrate ClearFuels’ High Efficiency Hydrothermal 

Reformer (HEHTR) gasification technology with Rentech’s existing natural gas-to-liquids 

Demonstration Unit. The purpose was to demonstrate integrated, large, pilot-scale (20 ton/day) 

conversion of biomass-derived syngas to renewable, Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) diesel and jet fuel. A 

portion of the Recovery Act award was directed to NREL to provide real-time product gas 

analysis, specifically tar, in both the untreated and conditioned syngas. NREL staff members 

were responsible for transport, set-up, process interface, and operation of the MBMS during the 

IBR commissioning stage and the independent engineer (IE) testing. The MBMS instrument was 

relocated to the Commerce City IBR facility in December 2011 and provided process analytical 

support for roughly 50 days over a 15-month period. During this period, the IBR logged more 

than 2,200 hours of HEHTR operation and more than 1,300 hours of integrated fuel production, 

processing a range of woody and bagasse feedstocks. During the IE test run, biomass-derived 

syngas was fed to the F-T reactor for approximately 200 hours, producing 1,096 gallons of fuel 

product. Unfortunately, in February 2013 Rentech announced the closure of the Commerce City 

facility and the company will not be pursuing commercialization of this technology. 

Nevertheless, the MBMS was able to provide valuable syngas data in terms of carbon 

partitioning to tar during the process optimization stage, and most of the project’s critical 

technical success factors were accomplished. 
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This report is available at no cost from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) at www.nrel.gov/publications.

Subject Inventions Listing: 

None 

Report Date: 

February 14, 2014 

Responsible Technical Contact at Alliance/NREL: 

Daniel Carpenter

This document contains NO confidential, protectable, or proprietary information.