Dig their Big Rig: Licella commissions world’s largest operating hydrothermal liquefaction facility

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Licella commissions world’s largest operating hydrothermal liquefaction facility

In Australia, Licella has completed initial commissioning of its upgraded Cat-HTR commercial-demonstration plant. The Commercial Stage 1 facility is co-owned with Canadian Forest Products Ltd. (Canfor), a global leader in the manufacturing of sustainable forest products, through its joint venture, Arbios Biotech. It is built around the core of Licella’s large pilot plant on the NSW Central Coast (Australia), utilizing its commercial-scale Cat-HTR reactors.

Cat-HTR stands for Catalytic Hydrothermal Reactor, the company’s pioneering hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) technology is now the world’s largest of its type.

CS-1 Cat-HTR is a powerful decarbonization platform that produces high value, low-carbon products, such as renewable transportation fuels and biochemicals. The CS-1 facility represents a universal HTL platform that has the ability to process the widest range of post-consumer biomass residues and plastics in the world.

High Carbon Efficiency

Older thermal upgrading technologies, such as pyrolysis and gasification, were developed in a less carbon-constrained world, the Cat-HTR has been developed to retain as much carbon in its products as possible. This results in a higher efficiency process which produces a high quality, stable and energy dense oil.

Licella commissions world’s largest operating hydrothermal liquefaction facility

In Australia, Licella has completed initial commissioning of its upgraded Cat-HTR commercial-demonstration plant. The Commercial Stage 1 facility is co-owned with Canadian Forest Products Ltd. (Canfor), a global leader in the manufacturing of sustainable forest products, through its joint venture, Arbios Biotech. It is built around the core of Licella’s large pilot plant on the NSW Central Coast (Australia), utilizing its commercial-scale Cat-HTR reactors.

Cat-HTR stands for Catalytic Hydrothermal Reactor, the company’s pioneering hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) technology is now the world’s largest of its type.

CS-1 Cat-HTR is a powerful decarbonization platform that produces high value, low-carbon products, such as renewable transportation fuels and biochemicals.  The CS-1 facility represents a universal HTL platform that has the ability to process the widest range of post-consumer biomass residues and plastics in the world.

High Carbon Efficiency

Older thermal upgrading technologies, such as pyrolysis and gasification, were developed in a less carbon-constrained world, the Cat-HTR has been developed to retain as much carbon in its products as possible. This results in a higher efficiency process which produces a high quality, stable and energy dense oil.

The Competitive Edge

By using water to control the thermo-chemical reactions, the Cat-HTR process operates at lower temperatures, using less energy, and retains more carbon in its products, compared to pyrolysis and gasification. This makes the platform well suited to our carbon-constrained world. By comparison, pyrolysis and gasification are uncontrolled reactions, resulting in a significant percentage of carbon from the feedstock ending up as either solid char or gas (CO2).

The Licella team, based on the NSW Central Coast, have continued to make significant commercial progress.  This year, Arbios Biotech this year formed a global alliance with Shell Catalysts & Technologies, to utilize Shell’s upgrader technology in its Cat-HTR commercial plants and create an end-to-end biorefinery solution. Some of the first biocrude produced from the new Cat-HTR CS-1 facility will be shipped to Shell’s facilities in Amsterdam for upgrading. In addition, Cat-HTR renewable biocrude can be fed into existing refinery infrastructure, a direct substitute for fossil derived equivalents.

In parallel, Mura Technology are building the first commercial HTL facility for waste plastic, with the Cat-HTR technology at its core, in the UK through subsidiary ReNew ELP. Mura, who have a global strategic alliance with KBR, recently announced an agreement with Mitsubishi Chemicals to build an advanced recycling plant in Japan, with Licella’s Cat-HTR technology at its core.

Reaction from the stakeholders

Licella CEO, Dr Len Humphreys, said that the new CS-1 facility will be capable of producing up to 140 barrels of sustainable oil per day, a direct substitute for fossil crude, from post-consumer biomass and plastics.

“We believe that our upgraded Cat-HTR facility is the largest operational plant of its kind in the world today. The commissioning of CS-1 acts as the catalyst to support the growing commercial roll-out of our Cat-HTR technology globally. It is an exciting commercial milestone,” said Dr Humphreys.

The Bottom Line

The commercial demo, that’s the acid test, that’s the Big Rig. After that, a development story transitions to deployment and, assuming that the commercial demo plays out, deployment and licensing activity should be intense given the popularity of waste feedstocks and lowest-carbon fuels around the world at this time. Timing couldn’t be better.