Room: Poster Area
Date: Thursday, 21 May 2026
Time: 11:30 - 12:45 CEST
Session code 5CV.3
Hydrothermal processing
Advancing Continuous Fast Hydrothermal Liquefaction: A Pilot-Scale Redesign Focused on Reliable Mass Balances
Short Introductive summary
Hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) stands out as an important thermochemical process used for the conversion of wet feedstock to biocrude in subcritical water, thereby bypassing the energy-intensive drying stage. Recent work has demonstrated that fast HTL with high heating rates can minimize secondary reactions and improve biocrude yield compared to conventional isothermal operation. On the other hand, HTL systems are continually hindered by issues in pressure control, fouling and incomplete product recovery, leading to inaccuracies in mass balances. These problems are heightened when high-viscosity bio-crudes build up in filter during continuous flow experiments. For that purpose, the continuous HTL pilot reactor currently at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano is being modified in order to achieve rapid heating and complete product recovery with accurate phase separation. This enhancement is meant to deliver robust and scalable data for rationalizing fast HTL in realistic continuous processing.
Presenter
Marco BARATIERI
Free University of Bolzano, Faculty of Science and Technology, ITALY
Presenter's biography
Professor in Thermal Engineering and Industrial Energy Systems at the Free University of Bolzano (Italy). M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering, Director of the Energy Engineering Master and Head of the Bioenergy&Biofuel Lab. His main research field is thermochemical conversion of biomass.
Biographies and Short introductive summaries are supplied directly by presenters and are published here unedited
Co-authors:
A. Cascioli, Free University of Bolzano, ITALY
V. Benedetti, University of Trento, ITALY
F. Patuzzi, Free University of Bolzano, ITALY
M. Baratieri, Free University of Bolzano, ITALY
Session reference: 5CV.3.21