In this era of diminishing petroleum reserves, it is imperative that industrialized society should develop ways to utilize more effectively the abundant and renewable biomass resources available to provide new sources of energy and chemical intermediates.[1] To this end, various processes have been developed to convert biomass and biomass-derived molecules into specialty chemicals (methanol), light alkanes (C 1 -C 6 ), liquid fuels (ethanol and C 7 -C 15 alkanes), and synthesis gas.[2]As a new direction, we show herein that glycerol can be converted over platinum-based catalysts into gas mixtures of H 2 and CO (synthesis gas) at temperatures from 498 to 620 K. These temperatures are lower than those for conventional gasification of biomass (e.g. 800-1000 K).[3, 4] Synthesis gas can be used to produce fuels and chemicals; therefore, the endothermic conversion of glycerol into synthesis gas can be combined with exothermic Fischer-Tropsch and methanol syntheses to provide low-temperature and energy-efficient routes for the production of these compounds. The glycerol used can be sourced from waste glycerol streams that are currently generated as by-products from the production of biodiesel. This heat-integrated catalytic process could also be a less energy-intensive alternative to current methods of converting carbohydrates into fuel-grade ethanol.Synthesis gas production methods for conventional Fischer-Tropsch plants require either an O 2 plant or a large Fischer-Tropsch reactor to process the synthesis-gas stream diluted with N 2 from air, thereby increasing the capital costs of such facilities.[5] Furthermore, Hamelinck et al. showed that nearly 50 % of the cost of producing Fischer-Tropsch liquids from biomass is related to capital cost, [6] of which 50 % stems from biomass gasification, gas cleaning, and synthesis-gas processing. The method we present herein may allow for economic operation of a small-scale Fischer-Tropsch reactor by producing an undiluted H 2 /CO gas mixture. Indeed, our method reduces the capital cost of the Fischer-Tropsch plant by eliminating the O 2 plant or biomass gasifier and subsequent gas-cleaning steps. The conversion of glycerol into CO and H 2 takes place by Equation (1). The endothermic enthalpy change of thisreaction (350 kJ mol À1 ) corresponds to about 24 % of the heating value of the glycerol (À1480 kJ mol À1 ). The heat generated by Fischer-Tropsch conversion of the CO and H 2 to liquid alkanes such as octane (À412 kJ mol À1 ) corresponds to about 28 % of the heating value of the glycerol. Thus, combining these two reactions results in the following exothermic process, with an enthalpy change (À63 kJ mol À1 ) that is about 4 % of the heating value of the glycerol:

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