This study aimed to investigate the critical elements of the biomass ex situ catalytic hydropyrolysis (CHP) concept to improve the quality of fast pyrolysis bio-oil (FPBO) for further coprocessing in a fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) refining unit. Generally, the high oxygen and low hydrogen contents of biomass result in a bio-oil with low quality, necessitating its upgrading, which can be performed as integrated in the pyrolysis process via in situ or ex situ configuration. In this work, the quality of stem wood-derived pyrolyzates (520 °C) was improved via ex situ CHP (400 °C) using a continuous bench-scale drop tube pyrolyzer (60 g h-1), and then the produced FPBO was coprocessed with vacuum gas oil (VGO) fossil oil using a lab-scale FCC unit (525 °C). CHP of stem wood was carried out using different metal-acid catalysts such as Ni/HZSM-5, Ni/HBeta, Mo/TiO2, and Pt/TiO2 at atmospheric pressure. FCC runs were performed using an equilibrium FCC catalyst and conventional fossil FCC feedstock cofed with 20 wt % stem wood-derived bio-oil in a fluidized bed reactor. Cofeeding the nonupgraded FPBO with fossil oil into the FCC unit decreased the generation of hydrocarbons in the range of gasoline and naphtha, indicating that bio-oil needs to be upgraded for further coprocessing in the FCC unit. Experimental results showed that different catalysts significantly affected the product composition and yield; Ni-based catalysts were strongly active tending to generate a high yield of gas, while Mo- and Pt-based catalysts seemed better for production of liquid with improved quality. The quality of FPBO was improved by reducing the formation of reactive oxygenates through the atmospheric CHP process. The composition of oil obtained from hydropyrolysis also showed that the yields of phenols and aromatic hydrocarbons were enhanced. © 2024 The Authors. 

Different conditions such as module orientation, ground albedo, shading and latitude are known to affect the performance of bifacial photovoltaic modules. We evaluate bifacial performance for one year at a site located at 65°N through comparison of measured and simulated front and back side plane-of-array irradiation. Each investigated module has a different azimuth, tilt, and exposure to shading from the surroundings. Local shading is found to severely impact the energy yield of the site in general, and individual modules to a varying degree depending on their location and orientation. Proper shading analysis appears to be required in the planning phase of a bifacial photovoltaic installation to accurately calculate the expected energy yield. The bifacial gain of the modules with azimuths in the east–west sector is found to span a range from 16 % to approximately the bifaciality factor, depending on the orientation. To fully utilize the potential of bifacial photovoltaics, this variability also needs to be carefully considered when planning and building bifacial photovoltaic installations.

In this study, frameless bifacial modules’ performance in a boreal climate is examined, with a focus on snow coverage and snow clearance for different module tilt angles. A group of ten bifacial modules at different tilt angles located in northern Sweden at latitude 65°N were studied during the first months of 2019. It was shown that modules mounted at 0 and 15° tilt was covered the most by snow and 80 and 90° the least. All other modules, mounted at 25-70° tilt, showed mostly similar results in snow coverage and removal. All modules were subjected to snow coverage from January to March. In January no considerable energy output was observed for any module. In February and March modules with tilt angles of 0 and 15° had a lower energy output than the other modules, for which no considerable differences were observed. In April, when no snow coverage occurred, the module mounted at 45° had the largest energy output and in May, 25-35° performed the best. For the entire period of January-May the modules at 35-45° output the most energy.

Pyrolysis is a promising thermochemical technology for converting biomass to energy, chemicals and/or fuels. The objective of the present paper was to characterize fast pyrolysis products and to study pyrolysis oil fractionation. The products were obtained from different Nordic forest and agricultural feedstocks in a pilot scale cyclone pyrolysis plant at three different reactor temperatures. The results show that the main elements (C, H and O) and chemical compositions of the products produced from stem wood, willow, forest residue and reed canary grass are in general terms rather similar, while the products obtained from bark differ to some extent. The oil produced from bark had a higher H/Ceff ratio and heating value which can be correlated to a higher amount of pyrolytic lignin and extractives when compared with oils produced from the other feedstocks. Regardless of the original feedstock, the composition of the different pyrolysis oil fractions (condensed and aerosol) differs significantly from each other. However this opens up the possibility to use specifically selected fractions in targeted applications. An increased reactor temperature generally results in a higher amount of water and water insoluble material, primarily as small lignin derived oligomers, in the produced oil.