http://gigaom.com/2012/11/12/kior-hits-milestone-of-making-biocrude-in-mississippi/ Wed, 19 Jun 2013 15:57:59 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ http://gigaom.com/2012/11/12/kior-hits-milestone-of-making-biocrude-in-mississippi/#comment-1300394 Thu, 17 Jan 2013 19:48:35 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=583474#comment-1300394 John, you are definitely right. Catalyst life, cost are critical for the commercialization of catalytic pyrolysis.

]]> http://gigaom.com/2012/11/12/kior-hits-milestone-of-making-biocrude-in-mississippi/#comment-1206479 Sat, 24 Nov 2012 17:45:27 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=583474#comment-1206479 This is encouraging progress. I still wonder how their catalyst will survive the highly alkaline ash left after the biomass has volatized off. The KiOR process is very similar to the petroleum refining process Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) where catalyst consumption is a 0.1-0.5 lbs/bbl of feed. A “barrel” of biomass say 350 lbs will contain 5-25 lbs of ash which will likely adhere and fuse to the catalyst rapidly deactivating it. KiOR is circumspect about catalyst life, cost, and supply. I would be too if my process had 0.3 lbs of catalyst swamped by 5-25 lbs of alkaline ash! Looks like the real money will be in the catalyst supply! Not surprising given that the founders come from the fluid cracking catalyst world as do I.

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