Vattenfall, Danish university team on bio-oil demo plant

Sweden’s Vattenfall and Denmark’s Aalborg University said today they plan to work with Danish startup SCF Technologies on a two-year project to build a demonstration plant based the startup’s bio-oil from waste technology.

SCF Technologies has developed what it calls a Catliq process, which it says converts organic waste into a bio-oil for heat, electricity, or fuel for commercial ships. The product can also be further refined into biodiesel. Bio-oil is considered to be a cleaner burning, bio-friendly alternative to hydrocarbon oil.

SCF said its process uses high pressure, temperature and humidity conditions to speed up the Earth’s natural process to take a few minutes, instead of millions of years.

With SCF’s technology, Vattenfall and the university are looking to design a demo plant, which would likely be annexed with Vattenfall’s power station in Aalborg. Vattenfall has said it’s looking for fuels to make its combined heat and power plants more environmentally friendly. Specifics about the size of the demo plant and its finances were not disclosed.

Last year, Vattenfall was also looking to build a demo plant for carbon capture and storage technology at a power plant in Brandenburg, Germany (see Vattenfall to build CCS demonstration plant in Germany).

Vattenfall is one of a number of companies looking to improve heat and power potential through bio-oil. In 2008, Morris Town, N.J.-based Honeywell (NYSE:HON) signed a joint venture with Wilmington, Del.'s Ensyn for Ensyn’s technology and equipment for the biomass to bio-oil industry.

Ensyn's Rapid Thermal Processing technology converts second generation biomass, such as forest and agricultural wastes, to bio-oil for use in power and heating applications (see Honeywell, Ensyn in biomass venture).