HIETE, M.; LUDWIG, J.; DOHN, N.; NÜMANN, K.; BERG, A.:
Proceedings of the Chilean-German Biociclo Workshop 2010.
Abstract
Chile is poor in fossil fuel resources and therefore strongly depends on imports of crude oil and natural gas with natural gas being mainly imported from Argentina. The use of biomass as fuel or chemical feedstock could help to reduce this import dependency and create value in Chile. Especially by-products of the wood industry represent a major source for potential further use. In the VIII re- gion Bíobío alone, about 790,000 tons of sawdust are produced annually by the wood industry. A considerable part of it is not used adequately since the transport of wood dust over longer distances is economically unviable. An emerging op- tion is the pyrolysis of saw dust to produce bio-oil.
The paper first analyzes the conversion of sawdust to bio-oil via fast pyro- lysis techno-economically with the aim to determine bio-oil production costs for Chile. In the second part, options for using the bio-oil are assessed, especially utilizations for contained components and their market potential in Chile. While the sole utilization of bio-oil as a fuel does not seem economically viable, the use of its components as feedstock is seen as an interesting alternative. Potential utilizations meriting more detailed research are proposed.