Catalytic Conversion of Biomass: Challenges and Issues

Abstract

There are strong incentives to develop the production of fuels, chemicals and materials from biomass. However, the extensive use of biomass for industrial production, particularly for biofuels which involves high tonnages, raises environmental and ethical issues that may throw some doubts on the sustainability of these processes. The processing cost of biomass must be decreased by designing new processing routes and catalytic systems because those employed for hydrocarbons are not adapted to the molecular structure of biomolecules. To avoid competition with food supply, lignocellulosic feedstocks should be used rather than traditional agricultural crops particularly for biofuel production. Life-cycle assessment, which takes into account all the inputs and outputs of a process/product, should be carried out to evaluate the environmental impact of processes and used as a decision-making tool for product development.

Catalytic transformation of cellulose into platform chemicals

“…Biorefinery, the transformation of biomass to renewable chemicals and fuels, is important under the situation of the rising cost and decreasing supply of oil [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. Particularly, plant-derived biomass is a reproducible and low environmental-loading resource, produced from CO 2 and water via photosynthesis using sunlight.…”

Ionic liquid-tolerant microorganisms and microbial communities for lignocellulose conversion to bioproducts

“…Lignocellulosic biomass, such as agricultural residues and dedicated energy crops, have the potential to provide low cost and renewable feedstocks for biofuels and bioproducts (Gallezot 2008;Gomez et al 2008). Lignocellulosic feedstocks are primarily composed of complex matrices of polysaccharides (cellulose and hemicellulose) and lignin which form plant cell walls (Buchanan et al 2015).…”

Selective Breakdown of (Ligno)cellulose in Ionic Liquids

“…As expected, a successful lignocellulosic biorefinery can be realized through a combination of different catalytic technologies and biomass processing strategies in ionic liquids for the flexible production of fuels, chemicals and materials (Ragauskas et al 2006;Corma et al 2007;Gallezot 2008;Alonso et al 2010). Sugar alcohols, a family of important bioproducts, are usually produced from the hydrogenation of monosaccharides.…”

“…In the traditional petrochemical industry, crude oil is fractionated and refined to produce various grades of liquid transportation fuels, and hydrocarbon feedstocks are functionalized to produce intermediates and specialty chemicals with advanced catalytic strategies (Gallezot 2008;Cheng et al 2009;Ong et al 2010). The concept of biorefinery is similar in terms of the utilization of a renewable source of carbon to produce heat, biomaterials, fuels and valueadded chemicals.…”