NEWS Can waste-products from forestry and agriculture become a key to reversing climate emissions? A new research project at Umeå University aims to find out. Professor Florian Schmidt at the Department of Applied Physics and Electronics has been awarded SEK 12 million from the Swedish Energy Agency to investigate how low‑quality biomass can be combusted in a way that enables efficient carbon dioxide capture – and ideally leads to negative emissions.
Florian Schmidt, professor at the Department of Applied Physics and Electronics.
Image simon ohman jonsson inhousebyranThe project is carried out in close collaboration with researchers from Lund University, Luleå University of Technology, the Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE), and several industrial partners.
Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage or utilization (BECCUS) is identified as one of Sweden’s most promising climate solutions. The potential is significant: the technology could deliver more than 25 million tonnes of negative CO₂ emissions per year – meaning it removes more CO₂ from the atmosphere than it emits (across the biomass lifecycle).
One of the most interesting methods for BECCUS is so‑called oxy‑fuel combustion, where fuel is burned in pure oxygen instead of air. This produces a flue gas with much higher concentrations of carbon dioxide, making capture, storage or reuse (for example, to produce electrofuels) considerably simpler and more cost‑effective.
What's unique is that we will explore how the technology could be implemented in Sweden
The project focuses on fluidized-bed combustion, a technology already widely used in industry and better suited than traditional methods for handling heterogeneous and difficult, ash-rich biomass. By combining fluidized-bed with oxy-fuel combustion, the researchers aim to find ways to utilize rest products from forestry and agriculture—materials that are currently often too low in quality to be used efficiently.
Over five years, the researchers will develop advanced models and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations of the complex process to better understand, among other things, how biomass behaves in a carbon dioxide–rich environment.
Advanced measurement techniques, such as laser spectroscopy, and detailed material analyses will be employed in laboratory and pilot-scale experiments to validate the simulations and study everything from chemical reactions to ash properties and the purity of the generated carbon dioxide.
– What makes this project unique is that we, in addition to the technical studies, also include systems analyses, where researchers will explore how the technology could be implemented in Sweden under different policy scenarios, what it would cost, and what climate benefits it would provide, says Florian Schmidt, Professor at the Department of Applied Physics and Electronics.
The goal is to generate knowledge that enables today’s heat and power plants to, in the future, not only produce energy – but also actively reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere or utilized in other processes.
If successful, the project could help Sweden take important steps toward a more sustainable and circular bioeconomy, where waste is transformed into energy, while carbon dioxide is captured and kept out of the atmosphere.
Lund university
Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE)
Luleå University of Technology
Kraftringen Energi AB
Umeå Energi AB
Valmet AB
Smurfit Westrock
Billerud AB
Bothnia Bioindustries Cluster (BOBIC)
Liquid Wind AB