Facilities
Description:
The Department of Forest Biomaterials occupies 51,000 square feet of laboratory and pilot plant space equipped with state-of-the-art instrumentation. We have an extensive and unique collection of equipment for bench- and pilot-scale biomass processing. These operations include chipping, pelletizing, thermochemical conversion facilities (pyrolysis, liquefaction, and gasification), biochemical pretreatment facilities (chemical (acid to alkaline) and mechanical treatments), biomass disintegration, pulp screening, enzymatic hydrolysis and fermentation, and bio-oil/bio-char characterization. Our program is also well equipped with analytical instruments for fiber and wood chemistry to characterize the chemical composition of wood with respect to lignin, carbohydrates and extractives. The department has access to the NCSU Torrefaction Pilot Plant at NCSU’s Lake Wheeler Farm.
Equipment available in the department
for Dr. Park's research
Fluidized fast pyrolysis reactor
Torrefaction pilot plant, ton per day scale
Torrefaction tube furnace
Parr reactor, 300mL – small-scale biomass liquefaction/pretreatment reactor
Milestone Microwave Ethos EX, 100mL – small-scale liquefaction/pretreatment reactor
Medium-scale biomass pretreatment reactor – M/L reactor (1kg) and TMP reactor (10kg)
High temperature furnace for slow pyrolysis
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Bomb calorimeter from Perkin Elmer
Karl Fisher titration system
Brunauer-Emmet-Teller (BET) surface area analyzer, Gemini VII 2390a, Micromeritics
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Two Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectrometers – 300MHz and 500MHz
Perkin-Elmer FTIR spectrometer
ThermoNicolet Nexus 670 FT-IR/NIR microscope with DRIFT and ATR capabilities
Foss NIR with microprobe
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Three sets of gas chromatographic equipment – One GC and two GC/MS systems
Four HPLC (Waters, Dionex, and two Agilent) with UV and/or RI detectors
Two Dionex IC systems
Pyroprobe connected to GC/MS
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TA Instruments Q500, Thermogravimetric Analyzer (TGA)
TA Instruments Q1000, Differential Scanning Calorimeter (DSC)
TA Instruments Q 800, Dynamic Mechanical Analyzer (DMA)
TA Instruments AR 2000, Advanced Rheometer
Equipment available in NCSU campus (all user facility) that Dr. Park has used
CHN/O analyzer from Perkin-Elmer
ICP: Inductively Coupled Plasma Spectroscopy
SEM: Joel 6400F Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope
XPS: X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy
TOFF-SIMS: Time-of-Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometer
XRD: X-ray Diffraction
Differential Scanning Calorimeter
Thermogravimetry
Rheometer
Dynamic Mechanical Analyzer
FT-IR
Ball milling
Agilent GC-MS
Thermo GC-MS
GC
Ion Chromatography
GPC
HPLC
Parr Reactor 100 mL
Parr Reactor 300 mL
Parr Reactor 1000 mL
UV-Vis Spectroscopy
Pyroprobe Reactor
Adsorption bed with UV
Karl-Fisher Titrator
Isothermal Incubator
Bomb Calorimeter
Microwave Reactor
M/K Reactor (1kg Biomass)
12 Inch Disk Refiner
2nd Generation Reactor for Pyrolysis and Gasification
Biomass feeding system
Bio-oil Collection
Gas Loop and Its Analysis
Pilot-scale Torrefaction Unit (one ton per day)