From cellulose, the maximum liquid yield from the RTP III reactor system approaches 90% by mass while gas yields are about 10% and char yields are negligible. The overall liquid yield is up to 83% by weight on dry feed basis and has typical characteristics as listed in Table 5.9. Hydroxyacetaldehyde (HA) yields from the RTP III reactor have been reported of up to 12% from wood while from other biomass materials, HA yields of up to 30% can be achieved.

The first commercial application of the Ensyn Technology was at Red Arrow Products in Wisconsin, USA which produce chemicals with the residual oil used as a boiler fuel (30). Two plants are now installed there.

Preliminary combustion tests performed have shown that fast pyrolysis bio-oils could be used in place of heavy fuels oils in industrial boiler applications (30, 31) where bio-oil has been shown to have a similar heat release rate and flame length as Number 6 fuel oil. Special combustion chambers would, therefore, not be required and a fossil fuel fired boiler or furnace could be easily converted to use this oil. Carbon monoxide emissions would be comparable to those from fossil fuel oil combustion, particulate emissions would be greater and NOx emissions would be lower. SO2 emissions from bio-oil combustion are less than 2% of those from the combustion of Number 6 oil.

Currently Ensyn is working with a number of companies in Europe to test fire Ensyn oil in an internal combustion engine. Ensyn are also involved in a large project with a gas turbine manufacturer to test fire bio-oil in a gas turbine. However, the oil can contain up to 0.2% by mass of inorganics which is derived from the ash in the feed. This which may present a problem in gas turbine operation and ash removal is being investigated by both hot gas filtration and liquid filtration.

There is an extensive literature relating mostly to the pioneering work on higher temperature fast pyrolysis for gases (e. g. 32, 33, 34, 35) with more recent publications on the commercialisation of the technology and investigations into applications (e. g. 36, 37).