Master's thesis and Internship : Techno-economic assessment of BioCarbon biomass pyrolysis technology

Abstract

Climate change mitigation requires rapid and deep decarbonisation of energy-intensive industries reliant on fossil fuels, particularly those characterised by high-temperature operations and unavoidable process-related CO2 emissions. Replacing fossil fuels with low-carbon alternatives therefore represents a key lever for reducing industrial emissions. In this context, BioCarbon’s biocoal, produced from biomass via a novel “spontaneous carbonisation” technology, emerges as a promising renewable substitute for fossil fuels, particularly coal, due to its comparable, and in some cases superior, fuel properties.

The objective of this study is to assess the techno-economic performance of biocoal produced using BioCarbon’s pyrolysis technology across different regional contexts. Belgium, representing a reference European industrial environment, and Senegal, a region characterised by abundant agricultural residues (particularly peanut shells), are selected as contrasted case studies. Using BioCarbon’s business model, specific production costs of approximately 530~€/t in Belgium and 358~€/t in Senegal are obtained. These values are subsequently integrated into a system-level optimisation framework for the lime industry enabling a direct comparison of lime production costs across different fuel-switching and carbon capture configurations. The results show a strong dependence of biocoal competitiveness on regional cost structures. In the Belgian reference case, the high production cost of biocoal leads to lime production costs exceeding 170~€/t of lime, which remain non-competitive under current market conditions. The system-level optimisation further shows that combining biogenic fuels with carbon capture enables net-negative \ce{CO2} emissions, albeit at higher costs. The integration of post-combustion capture using MEA leads to an increase in lime production costs of approximately 67\%. Oxy-combustion coupled with an air separation unit (ASU) and cryogenic purification (CPU) leads to a smaller cost increase of approximately 47\%. In contrast, the Senegalese case benefits from low-cost biomass and labour, resulting in lower biocoal production costs and positioning biocoal as one of the most competitive alternative fuels, with lime production costs of approximately 100~€/t.

A sensitivity analysis performed on the main input parameters shows that substantial cost reductions can be achieved through the integration of low-cost biomass supply chains and the valorisation of pyrolysis by-products. These findings motivated the definition of a best-case scenario for the Belgian context resulting in a reduced price of approximately 305~€/t. In contrast, no equivalent best-case scenario was defined for Senegal, as the absence of adapted markets for pyrolysis by-products limits the realism of such assumptions. Under these favourable conditions, biocoal-based lime production pathways shifted into the identified competitiveness range, achieving lime production costs close to 150~€/t, confirming that biocoal can become a viable transitional fuel for industrial decarbonisation. More fundamentally, these results indicate that the economic performance of biocoal production should not be regarded as a standalone energy product, but as part of a broader biorefinery concept. This systemic perspective is therefore essential when assessing the real potential of biocoal as an industrial decarbonisation solution.

Overall, this work demonstrates that, when deployed under appropriate conditions, BioCarbon’s technology enables biocoal to be a viable alternative fuel for industrial decarbonisation, contributing to significant emission reductions while maintaining economic feasibility.