APP - Pilot Plant Areas

Research Lines

Scale-up of biodiesel production processes, gasification, pretreatment/conversion of biomass in high pressure reactors, cultivation of microalgae in photobioreactors, anaerobic biodigestion and fermentation. Physical treatment of feedstocks. Construction of prototypes and equipments.

Structure and equipment

With an area of 409 m², it has two gasification pilot-plants (fixed and fluidized bed), a pilot-plant for vegetable oil extraction, a 70-liter biodiesel synthesis plant, a biogas bioreactor, 3 reactors for lignocellulosic biomass pre-treatment, 6 photobioreactors for microalgae cultivation with 360 liters capacity each, besides a fermentation room, which has 5 fermenters of 5 and 10 liters and a fermenter of 100 useful liters. The area has a cold chamber and support equipment such as forced ventilation greenhouses, mills, buffer tanks, compressor, and centrifuge.