Last 18 September 2020, M.Sc. Joscha Zimmermann (KIT, Institute of Catalysis Research and Technology – IKFT) took part in the 3rd edition of the Doctoral Colloquium BIOENERGY, organized by DBFZ, as a virtual web conference. The Doctoral Colloquium BIOENERGY, chairedby Prof. Dr.-Ing. Daniela Thrän, covered the full biomass conversion chain, from the feedstock to different conversion pathways and their technological implementation, up to the resulting products and services. The needed system analyses and measures for system integration were addressed as well.

Zimmermann presented a poster on the Influence of thermochemical pretreatments on hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) of sewage sludge, a work done in team with Dr. Klaus Raffelt and Nicolaus Dahmen as part of the activities performed in NextGenRoadFuels project.

The poster showed the results from the application of different pre-treatment methods to sewage sludge prior to its coversion, as foreseen in the hydrothermal liquefaction – HTL process.

Since sewage sludge has a relatively high content of inorganics (mostly alkali and alkaline earth metallic species) and it is rich in nitrogen and sulphur, the goal is to develop an efficient and doable pre-treatment method for HTL of sludge without losing carbon, therefore with limited impact on resulting bio-crude yields and quality.