The production of renewable chemicals is gaining attention over the past few years. The natural resources from which they can be derived in a sustainable way are most abundant in sugars, cellulose and hemicellulose. These highly functionalized molecules need to be de-functionalized in order to be feedstocks for the chemical industry. A fundamentally different approach to chemistry thus becomes necessary, since the traditionally employed oil-based chemicals normally lack functionality. This new chemical toolbox needs to be designed to guarantee the demands of future generations at a reasonable price. The surplus of functionality in sugars and glycerol consists of alcohol groups. To yield suitable renewable chemicals these natural products need to be defunctionalized by means of dehydroxylation. Here we review the possible approaches and evaluate them from a fundamental chemical aspect.

This study investigates the role of β-zeolite acid site density on hydrocarbon and coke yields.

In situ and ex situ catalytic pyrolysis were compared in a system with two 2-in. bubbling fluidized bed reactors. Pine was pyrolyzed in the system with a catalyst, HZSM-5 with a silica-to-alumina ratio of 30, placed either in the first (pyrolysis) reactor or the second (upgrading) reactor. Both the pyrolysis and upgrading temperatures were 500 °C, and the weight hourly space velocity was 1.1 h −1 . Five catalytic cycles were completed in each experiment. The catalytic cycles were continued until oxygenates in the vapors became dominant. The catalyst was then oxidized, after which a new catalytic cycle was begun. The in situ configuration gave slightly higher oil yield but also higher oxygen content than the ex situ configuration, which indicates that the catalyst deactivated faster in the in situ configuration than the ex situ configuration. Analysis of the spent catalysts confirmed higher accumulation of metals in the in situ experiment. In all experiments, the organic oil mass yields varied between 14 and 17% and the carbon efficiencies between 20 and 25%. The organic oxygen concentrations in the oils were 16−18%, which represented a 45% reduction compared to corresponding noncatalytic pyrolysis oils prepared in the same fluidized bed reactor system. GC/MS analysis showed the oils to contain one-to four-ring aromatic hydrocarbons and a variety of oxygenates (phenols, furans, benzofurans, methoxyphenols, naphthalenols, indenols). High fractions of oxygen were rejected as water, CO, and CO 2 , which indicates the importance of dehydration, decarbonylation, and decarboxylation reactions. Light gases were the major sources of carbon losses, followed by char and coke.