Continuous Hydrothermal Liquefaction of Sargassum seaweed

Hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) is often mooted as a promising and sustainable processing methodology for conversion of biomass into usable products, including bio-oils, which have the potential to alleviate humanitys reliance on fossil fuels. To date, the majority of HTL development work with novel biomasses has been undertaken at laboratory scale in batch processes and the results extrapolated to theoretical continuous flow processes required for industrial uptake. Here, we assess the use of a novel continuous flow HTL system, applying it to Sargassum (seaweed) material and generating a bio-oil which is assessed against typical crude oil fractions.