Research database

PYSOLO project aims at preparing the ground for a novel ground-breaking and fully renewable process combining concentrated solar power and biomass pyrolysis. Thanks to the use of solar heat in the pyrolysis process instead of combustion of part of the products, the production of valuable products can be maximized and the associated CO2 emission minimized, with economic and environmental benefits compared to conventional pyrolysis. The proposed system uses Particles Heat Carrier (PHC), ensuring operational flexibility thanks to low-cost high-temperature heat storage and avoiding the need of heat transfer surface in the pyrolysis reactor, that facilitates the system scale-up. Specifically, PYSOLO process aims at developing at TRL4 the two key operational units of this novel solar pyrolysis system, namely: (i) the solar particle receiver and (ii) the pyrolysis reactor with the associated particle-char separator. The novelty of PYSOLO concept lies in its innovative coupling of pyrolysis technology with high temperature CSP system. This ground-breaking feature can potentially offer the following main advantages: • delivering solar bio-oil, pyrogas and biochar for different energy and non-energy uses with minimised CO2 emissions; • providing balancing services to the electric grid from the conversion of the available pyrogas into electricity and with the integration of an induction heating system to absorb excess electricity from the grid.