$650K USDA award to NIU could lead to world’s first biomass pipeline

Nov 06, 2023

DeKalb, IL – NIU's Mahdi Vaezi is investigating the feasibility of constructing an innovative, first-of-its-kind biomass pipeline.

Engineering Technology Professor Mahdi Vaezi

The research project, supported by a $650,000 award over four years to NIU from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, could lay the groundwork for the world's first biomass pipeline in the state of Maine, says Vaezi, a professor of Engineering Technology.

Simply put, biomass is renewable organic material that comes from plants and animals. It has been used to cook and stay warm since the dawn of humankind—think of a wood-burning stove or fireplace, for example.

Biomass continues to be an important fuel in many countries, especially for cooking and heating in developing countries, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The use of biomass fuels for transportation and for electricity generation is increasing in many developed countries as a means of avoiding carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel use.

Today's biomass feedstocks can include dedicated energy crops, agricultural crop residues, forestry residues, algae, wood processing residues and the organic components of municipal and industrial waste. Benefits from the use of biomass energy include reducing dependence on foreign oil, supporting U.S. agricultural and forest-product industries and the potential to greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"Much of the world is dependent on fossil fuels, and everyone is looking for replacement options," Vaezi said. "Yet we have vast sources of biomass that are wasted or underutilized."

Vaezi first studied the feasibility of a biomass pipeline for his dissertation nearly a decade ago at the University of Alberta in Canada. For the new project, he’ll have considerably more resources at his disposal.

The USDA grant will be used in part to purchase roughly $100,000 in instruments and equipment for a new Waste Advanced Solution Technologies and Ecosystems Laboratory (WASTE Lab) in Still Gym, where a 30-foot, closed circuit prototype pipeline will be assembled in coming months. NIU's Department of Engineering Technology, College of Engineering and Engineering Technology and Division of Research and Innovation Partnerships (RIPS) are supporting the laboratory development as well.

RIPS also helped Vaezi find industry and scientific partners for the project. Collaborators on the grant are Dr. Parisa Mirbod (the Mirbod Lab) at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and Biofine Developments Northeast Inc., a biomass user and biorefinery. Mirbod and her group at UIC will investigate the phenomena behind plug flow formation and drag reduction effect in the flow of fibrous biomass particles slurries in pipes and pumps using flow visualization techniques such as Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV).

"This is a great example of a research collaboration that connects a faculty expert with innovators, entrepreneurs, industry and students," said Gerald Blazey, vice president of RIPS. "We’re happy to help support this important research."

Vaezi intends to hire a Ph.D. student, three master's students and several undergrads to work on lab components, and Senior Design teams also will tackle project aspects.

"Besides research applications, this project has teaching applications in such areas as fluid mechanics, pump and piping systems, energy management and flow instrumentation," Vaezi said.

In consultation with the Construction Management Institute of Maine, the project will include a case study of the techno-economy of large-scale and long-distance biomass pipelines, for a potential 10-mile long woodchips pipeline to supply a commercial port in Eastport, Maine. The woodchips would be pipelined in a slurry (a mixture with water) to the port and shipped to Europe.

"Maine has a massive port used in part to send woodchips to Europe, but they can't get enough material to the port because of transportation issues," Vaezi said. "A pipeline could eliminate the need for thousands of woodchip truckloads per year."

In the past, the high cost of transporting biomass feedstock, most often by truck, has been a major barrier toward increasing the scale of biomass-based energy facilities. The current study will include technological and economic analyses to compare the pipeline hydro-transport of biomass with truck, train and ship transportation in short, medium and long distances.

"Pipelining is considered a near-zero emission process, which eliminates environmental and social issues associated with overland transportation," Vaezi said.

An added benefit of a pipeline system is that the biomass slurry can be heated to destroy contaminants or infestation that may be subject of biomass shipping regulations, Vaezi said. Once delivered, biomass could be screened to recycle water and moved to an open space, where it could be naturally or mechanically air dried at little to no cost.

In addition to wood chips, the NIU team will study the economic and mechanical feasibility of pumping sawdust and wheat straw water mixtures via pipeline.

"Biomass feedstock provides energy security," Vaezi said. "It's the only type of renewable energy that can be directly converted into biofuel.

"We anticipate this novel work will introduce pipeline as a technically feasible and economically viable mode of delivery to transport biomass feedstock in large scales and over long distances at costs noticeably lower than other modes of delivery, such as truck, train and ship," he added. "This will make biomass-based energy facilities scale- and economy-wise competitive with fossil fuel-based plants."

Media Contact: Tom Parisi

About NIU

Northern Illinois University is a student-centered, nationally recognized public research university, with expertise that benefits its region and spans the globe in a wide variety of fields, including the sciences, humanities, arts, business, engineering, education, health and law. Through its main campus in DeKalb, Illinois, and education centers for students and working professionals in Chicago, Naperville, Oregon and Rockford, NIU offers more than 100 areas of study while serving a diverse and international student body.