Biomass Conversion Pilot Plant

NLR's Biomass Conversion Pilot Plant enables researchers, industry partners, and stakeholders to test a variety of integrated, performance-enhanced chemical conversion processes and technologies.

Interior of industrial, two-story building with high-bay, piping, and large processing equipment. Three workers in hard hats.

NLR's 27,000-ft2 high-bay Biomass Conversion Pilot Plant accommodates bench-to-pilot-scale processes for converting cellulosic biomass into a variety of chemicals and fuels at process throughputs of up to 1 tonne of dry biomass per day.

Experiments in the Biomass Conversion Pilot Plant are supported by NLR's technological scale-up and piloting research. NLR's analysis, characterization, modeling, and super intelligence research helps accelerate the translation of laboratory-scale conversion pathways to commercial-scale production.

Revitalization Effort

Aerial view of Biomass Conversion Power Plant diagram

Since its design and construction in the mid-1990s, NLR's Integrated Biorefinery Research Facility has been a significant asset to the U.S. Department of Energy in building valuable R&D partnerships across the bioeconomy. Now, to meet the challenges of developing the next generation of chemical, fertilizer, and critical mineral technologies, NLR is modernizing the facility.

Key upgrades to the Biomass Conversion Pilot Plant enable cost-effective, timely, and technically rigorous piloting by using:

  • Plug-and-play modular concepts for rapid reconfiguration and integration of new and existing equipment to reduce costs

  • Full process integration from feedstock to finished products at Technology Readiness Level 5/6, incorporating biochemical, thermochemical, and electrochemical equipment

  • Rigorous analytics and data tracking using highly instrumented systems to allow for deep understanding of process

  • Comprehensive modeling—including digital twin, computational fluid dynamics and techno-economic and process analysis—to accurately simulate and derisk technologies

  • Scale-up support with experienced and dedicated personnel to ensure high-integrity data and that lessons gained are scalable

  • House equipment and utilities to minimize technology scale-up barriers, enabling a quicker path to commercialization.

Together, these enhancements significantly boost the facility's flexibility, speed, safety, scale-up, and piloting capabilities. These capabilities will accommodate biochemical, thermochemical, and electrochemical research from bench-scale to pilot-scale for decades to come.

Core Capabilities

NLR's Biomass Conversion Pilot Plant has these capabilities:

  • Storage area for feedstock delivered in totes, drums, or supersacks

  • Mobile knife mill for smaller sample preparations

  • Pulp fibrillation instrument mill for batch pulping

    • Capacity: 20–40 g (dry basis)

  • Two knife milling systems with dust collection

    • Capacity: 100 kg/hour (dry basis)

  • Mobile 12-in. disc refiner with manual plate gap adjustment at 0.025-mm increments

  • Mobile planetary ring-roller mill for wet and dry grinding

  • Feed surge hoppers and pneumatic conveyance to pretreatment systems

  • Cyclones for milled product collection

Batch reactors

  • 4-L steam-explosion batch reactor

    • Maximum temperature: 238°C

    • Saturated steam pressure: 450 pounds per square inch gauge (psig)

    • Construction: Hastelloy C-22

  • 90-L batch paddle-type mixed reactor

    • Construction: Alloy 20

    • Maximum allowable working pressure (MAWP): 90 psig

  • 170-L batch paddle-type mixed reactor

    • Construction: Hastelloy C-22

    • MAWP: 350 psig

  • All reactor systems have multiple options for pretreatment catalysts

Continuous reactors

  • Continuous horizontal screw-type reactor system

    • Four auger reactors in series

    • Capacity: 0.5 tonnes per 24-hour day of dry biomass

    • Operating temperature: 140°–210°C

    • Residence times: 3–120 minutes

    • Construction: 316 stainless steel and Hastelloy C-2000

  • Continuous vertical reactor

    • Inline secondary reactor for optional treatment at lower temperatures

    • Capacity: 0.5–1 tonne per 24-hour day of dry biomass

    • Operating temperature: 140°C–210°C

    • Residence times: 2–60 minutes

    • Construction: 316 stainless steel and Hastelloy C-2000

  • All reactor systems have multiple options for pretreatment catalysts

Reactors

  • 30-L batch or continuous paddle-type mixed reactor

    • Construction: 316 stainless steel

    • MAWP: 100 psig

  • 1,900-L batch paddle-type mixed reactor with hot-water jacket

    • Construction: 316 stainless steel

    • MAWP: 50 psig

  • Four 4,000-L semicontinuous processing paddle-type mixed reactors with hot-water jackets

    • Total solids loadings greater than 20% (w/w)

    • Construction: 304 stainless steel

Pilot plant bioreactors

  • Two 160-L fermentation vessels

  • Two 1,500-L fermentation vessels

  • Four 9,000-L fermentation vessels

Capabilities

  • All systems can be run independently or sequentially

  • Operation modes: batch, fed-batch, or continuous

  • Fully instrumented to control pressure, temperature, pH, weight (level), and dissolved oxygen

  • Off-gas monitoring with mass spectrometry

  • Aerobic or anaerobic operation

  • Agitated (two impellers per tank) and aerated

  • Clean-in-place installation

  • Continuous high-temperature, short-residence-time sterilizer

  • Construction: 316 stainless steel

  • MAWP: 50 psig to full vacuum

Centrifugation

  • 120-L bowl perforated basket filtering centrifuge

    • Construction: Hastelloy

    • Speed: 900 gravitational force

  • 320-L bowl perforated basket filtering centrifuge

    • Construction: 316 stainless steel

    • Speed: 900 gravitational force

  • Disc stack centrifuge

    • Typically used for microbial cell separation

    • Continuous operation capable of both two-phase or three-phase separations

    • Construction: 316 stainless steel

    • Speed: 11,000 gravitational force

  • Horizontal solid bowl centrifuge

    • Designed for continuous high-g force separation of industrial slurries into liquid and solid phases

    • Construction: 304 stainless steel

Other systems

  • Tangential-flow (cross-flow) filtration

    • Currently configured for microfiltration

    • Circulation rate: 18,000 L/hr

    • Permeate rate: 1–3 L/min (depending on feed characteristics)

    • Construction: 316 stainless steel

  • Forced circulation evaporator

    • Continuous feed capabilities

    • Handling insoluble solids up to 5 wt% biomass

    • Water evaporation rate: 500 lb/hr

    • Construction: 304 stainless steel

    • MAWP: 75 psig

  • Bench- and pilot-scale biomass chemical impregnation and dewatering systems (screw presses)

     

Research in the Biomass Conversion Pilot Plant taps into NLR's suite of special-purpose laboratories, including:

  • Compositional analysis

  • Process engineering and economic analysis

  • Molecular biology

  • Microscopy analysis

  • Rheology and particle size characterization

  • High-throughput processing and analysis

  • Computational modeling.

Contact

Bob Baldwin

Principal Scientist

Robert.Baldwin@nlr.gov

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Learn how to work with NLR to develop, translate, and de-risk bioeconomy innovations for market readiness.

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Last Updated Oct. 22, 2026