The group “Sustainable, clean and bioenergy systems” conducts experimental and numerical research on thermo-chemical biomass conversion and its integration into renewable bioenergy and biorefinery concepts. The group is a key scientific partner of the Austrian biomass competence centre BEST Bioenergy and Sustainable Technologies and has a close collaboration with national and international research groups and industrial partners in the bioenergy sector.

• Thermo-chemical biomass conversion: combustion, gasification and pyrolysis.
• Formation and reduction of air pollutant emissions: NO_x, PM, CO, soot, PAHs and tar.
• Reaction mechanisms development and reduction for thermo-chemical biomass conversion (see link for the detailed RAC pyrolysis scheme) as well as gas phase reactions and pollutant formation.
• CFD modelling of turbulent, reactive and multiphase flows. CFD-supported development and optimization of biomass conversion plants.
• Biomass gasification producer gas conditioning and utilization.
• Bioenergy and biorefinery concepts for the production of heat and power, cold, liquid and gaseous fuels as well as chemicals.
• System integration of biomass conversion plants in renewable energy concepts.

Projects

• Kombi-DeNOx – Development of a New Combined DeNOx Technology with Primary and Secondary Measures for Biomass Firing Systems in the Small to Medium Capacity Range. (2021 - 2025). FFG Basisprogramm. Link
• BIO-LOOP – Chemical Looping for efficient biomass utilization (2020 - 2024). FFG Comet-Modul. Link
• Hybrid-BioVGE – Hybrid Variable Geometry Ejector Cooling and Heating System for Buildings Driven by Solar and Biomass Heat (2019 - 2022). H2020 LC-SC3-RES Link
• BIO-CCHP – Advanced biomass CCHP based on gasification, SOFC and cooling Machines (2018 - 2021). 11^th call ERA-NET Bioenergy. Link
• BRISK II - Biofuels Research Infrastructure for Sharing Knowledge II (2017 - 2022). H2020 – INFRAIA. Link
• MultifuelLowEmission – Development of a novel multifuel biomass boiler with lowest pollutant emissions (2017 - 2020). 3. Energieforschung. Link
• GrateAdvance – Advanced adjustable grate solutions for future fuel flexible biomass combustion technologies (2016 - 2018). 9^th call ERA-NET Bioenergy. Link
• LowCostEmissionStove – Development of a novel, cost-efficient pellet and wood log stove technology with very low emissions (2016 - 2018). 2. Energieforschung. Link
• Key scientific partner of BEST Bioenergy and Sustainable Technologies in the Comet K1 research program. Link

Infrastructure

• 2 fluidized bed biomass gasifiers (5 kW). Access to this infrastructure is provided in BRISK 2.
• Producer gas conditioning unit.
• Lab-scale (30 kW) biomass combustion plant.
• Hybrid boiler for biochar production (20 kW).
• Gas analysis with several methods, including GC.
• Infrastructure for simulations with the software packages ANSYS Fluent, Chemkin, Factsage and Matlab.