TECHNOLOGY FOCUS - INSTRUMENTATION AND TESTING - Preferred Components: The solar-driven bio-refinery further comprises an on-site fuel synthesis reactor having an input to receive the hydrogen and carbon monoxide products from the gasification reaction, a grinding system to couple to the entrained-flow biomass feed system, multiple outlet lock hoppers in the entrained flow biomass feed system, reactor tubes in the solar-driven chemical reactor, gasifier reactor tubes in the solar-driven chemical reactor and a separate biomass entrainment/feed rate metering line for each of the gasifier reactor tubes, a screw in the lock hopper rotary feed system, a computerized control system to send a feed demand signal to the screw, weight measuring metering device to control the feed rate of the particles of biomass in the individual gasifier reactor tubes in the solar-driven chemical reactor based on an amount of solar energy available indicated by sensors including temperature sensors and/or light meters, a torrefaction unit geographically located on the same site as the solar-driven chemical reactor, an ash source in the entrained-flow biomass feed system, a first sensor to indicate an amount of solar energy available, and a flow enhancer in the entrained-flow biomass feed system to control an amount of entrainment carrier gas carrying the particles of biomass entering a gasification reaction zone of the reactor tubes by reducing velocity of the carrier gas just before to an entrance to a gasification reaction zone of the reactor tubes by removing a controlled portion of the carrier gas through the flow enhancer. The fuel synthesis reactor is configured to use the hydrogen and carbon monoxide products in a hydrocarbon fuel synthesis process to create a liquid hydrocarbon fuel, and is geographically located on the same site as the chemical reactor and integrated into the process to utilize the hydrogen and carbon monoxide products from the gasification reaction. The entrained-flow biomass feed system includes a conveyer to bring the biomass to the grinding system that grinds biomass into particles via a mechanical cutting device cooperating with a set of filters with specific sized holes in the filters. The grinding system generates particles that have an average smallest dimension size of 200-2000 mu m in diameter with 500-1000 mu m such to fit through the holes in the filters. The particles are loaded into a lock hopper system with a standard belt or pneumatic conveyer. The lock hopper has an output, which feeds the primary particles across a pressure boundary into the pressurized entrainment carrier gas for feeding via the feed lines into the solar-driven chemical reactor. The feeding vessel is a pressurized lock hopper having an injection vessel to discharge the particles of biomass via a single-outlet and rotational screw and then into an entrainment gas pipe. The particles of the biomass are distributed in the entrainment gas line by a fluid-bed splitter to feed into a number of feed lines, which each feeds its own reactor tube making up the solar-driven chemical reactor. Each multi-outlet lock hopper feed the biomass particles at the consistent volumetric amount of biomass particles into a reactor tube subset via pressurized entrainment lines that feed the solar-driven chemical reactor. The pressurized entrainment gas in the entrainment lines is provided by recycled carbon dioxide from an amine acid gas removal step in the hydrocarbon fuel synthesis process. The first multiple outlet lock hopper is the feeding vessel, and each additional multiple outlet lock hopper is another feeding vessel. Each multi-outlet lock hopper provides and controls an amount of distribution of the biomass particles to the pressurized entrainment lines that feed the reactor tubes within a tube subset in the solar-driven chemical reactor. The solar-driven chemical reactor allows independent temperature control and balancing of an amount of particles of non-food biomass flowing in each of the gasifier reactor tubes in the multiple tube solar-driven chemical reactor. The feeding vessel is a lock hopper rotary feed system having an output to distribute the particles of biomass to the gasifier reactor tubes, which allows for balanced feeding to individual gasifier reactor tubes. The feed rate of the particles of biomass is controlled by a weight measuring metering device and by controlling a rotational rate of the screw that moves set amounts of biomass along the axis of rotation. The screw is located at the base of the lock hopper. The feeding vessel is a multiple output port lock hopper with a multiple rotational feed splitter system. The multiple port lock hopper is configured to feed up to 12 feed gas entrainment lines from a single lock hopper with the added ability to accurately control feed rate of the particles of biomass with a rotational rate of each rotational feed splitter. The torrefaction unit is configured to subject the biomass to partial pyrolysis with recouped waste heat in a temperature of 300 degrees C to make the biomass, which is brittle and easy for grinding, is dryer, less sticky and easier to feed in a conveying system, subjects to less spoilage issues in storage as a torrefied biomass, and produces off gases from the torrefaction process and use the off gases for the entrainment carrier gas, steam generation, or electrical generation. The grinding system has a series perforated filters in the entrained-flow biomass feed system, and a mechanical cutting device that cuts and sheers biomass. The mechanical cutting device and perforated filters grind the partially pyrolyzed biomass from the torrefaction unit to control the particle size of the biomass to be 500-1000 mu m. The torrefaction unit supplies partially pyrolyzed biomass to the grinding system. The torrefaction of the partially pyrolyzed biomass reduces the energy required by the pneumatic screw to grind the biomass to the controlled particle size of 500-1000 mu m. The feeding vessel in the feed system is configured to discharge the particles of biomass through a multiplicity of single-outlet rotational feed devices that provide the consistent volumetric feed rate. Each rotational feed device feeds a separate gas entrainment line and a separate reactor tube. A rotational speed of each of the rotational feed devices is independently controlled. The ash source adds waste ash to the particles of biomass to aid in a bulk flow of the combined materials that tend to bridge due to strong Van der Waals inter-particle forces and assists in the different biomass. The feed lines carry the biomass particles with the waste ash. An outlet of each of the feed lines controls a dispersion pattern of the biomass particles into its corresponding reactor tube to maximize radiation absorption by the particles when injected into the reactor tube based on a shape and width of the outlet of the feed line pipe carrying the biomass particles to its corresponding reactor tube. The pneumatic screw and set of filters cooperate to grind and pulverize the biomass to particles to the micron sized holes of the filters. The particles of biomass are fed into and gasified in the solar-driven chemical reactor. The feeding vessel is a lock hopper having an airlock type of feeding rate metering device, and varies an amount of biomass supplied to the reactor tubes based on an amount of available concentrated solar energy to a heat sink affect to the chemical reactor and solar thermal receiver from the supplied amount of biomass to generate the hydrogen and carbon monoxide products from the gasification reaction at a greater than 90% conversion rate of the biomass in a residence time of 0.01-5 seconds. The solar-driven chemical reactor has a cyclic operation rather than a continuous steady state operation, and has multiple reaction tubes in a downdraft orientation. The feed system feeds the biomass particles into the multiple reaction tubes in which the particles of biomass are gasified in the presence of steam at a temperature of 950 degrees C from an exit of a gasification reaction zone of the reactor tubes to generate the hydrogen and carbon monoxide products from the gasification reaction. The control system in the entrained flow biomass feed system is configured to control a biomass flow rate for the particle size of the biomass and current temperature in each reactor tube required to achieve from the gasification reaction greater than 90% conversion of the biomass particles into the hydrogen and carbon monoxide products with low tar production of less than 50 mg/Nm3. The current temperature is fed back to the computerized control system by the temperature sensors. The particles of biomass are pneumatically fed from the biomass feed system via the entrainment carrier gas to the solar-driven chemical reactor. The particles of biomass are pre-heated before enter into the chemical reactor by the carrier gas, which is carbon dioxide gas and/or steam, and is heated from the reaction products of the gasification reaction coming out of the chemical reactor by a counter flow heat exchanger using the waste heat as its heat source to heat the entrainment carrier gas up to a maximum temperature of 300 degrees C. A two-phase control system couples to the feed lines, and is a pinch system on each feed line to each reactor tube that receives dynamic feedback from the control system to control an amount of compression of a flexible pipe section of the feed line that the biomass particles are flowing through. A filtered form of the carbon monoxide and hydrogen from the chemical reaction in the chemical reactor is supplied to an input of a downstream chemical synthesis processes in which methanol is generated and is supplied to a Methanolto-Gasoline process. The flow enhancer includes bulkmatology flow enhancer or a porous-walled tube. The amount of biomass particles flowing into each of the reactor tubes to an amount of solar energy available is accomplished via a control system to control flow in the individual reactor tubes by controlling a rotational rate of a screw of a lock hopper feeding the biomass. All the tubes in the tube subset have feed rate turned up or turned down. The entrained-flow biomass feed system comprises a silica source to add silica to the particles of biomass to aid in a bulk flow of the combined materials that otherwise would tend to bridge due to strong Van der Waals inter-particle forces. The silica comprises fumed silica, 2-5% of the bulk flow added to the biomass during pulverization.