Biopower is the use of biomass resources to produce, either singly or in combination, electricity, heat/steam, and cooling. A number of technologies can be used to produce biopower including direct fire applications, gasification, and pyrolysis.
Direct fire applications include the dedicated combustion of biomass resources in utilities, the combustion of biomass resources produced as a by-product of the manufacturing process in industrial settings, and co-firing which involves the partial substitution of fossil fuels with biomass resources.
Gasification involves the thermal decomposition of biomass resources in an oxygen starved environment to produce syngas, and is intermediate to combustion (thermal degradation with excess oxygen) and pyrolysis (thermal degradation in the absence of oxygen). Gasifiers may be sized from those small enough to heat a home, to those large enough to drive major manufacturing or processing applications.
Pyrolysis is the thermal decomposition of biomass resources into volatile compounds in the absence of oxygen. Current interest focuses on fast pyrolysis processes because the products formed are similar to fossil fuels currently used, particularly bio-oil which can be used for heating and to produce transportation fuels and organic chemicals.