Integrating Torrefaction in the Wood Pellet Industry: A Critical Review

As an established bioenergy industry, the global wood pellet sector is ideally positioned to adopt biomass torrefaction technologies. In this review, potential benefits and challenges of integrating torrefaction within the pellet industry are reviewed and the required technological interventions to enable this integration are analyzed. It is apparent that integration would accelerate the commercialization of biomass torrefaction and benefit the wood pellet industry, torrefaction developers, as well as coal-based utilities. Torrefied pellets are expected to have distinct applications in power generation and help coal-based utilities to reduce their emission levels and comply with increasingly stringent regulations. Co-firing coal with black pellets requires little-to-no retrofit of the existing power plant and, therefore, can offer a low-cost solution. Two potential pathways, in either an upstream or downstream configuration, for retrofitting torrefaction within a white pellet facility are assessed. A succ...