Chemicals, biomass lignin derivatives

Biomass resources will become more important in the future as alternative chemicals and fuel from fossil resources. Such alternatives can be carbon-neutral and renewable. Therefore, the use of biomass is of benefit for our global environments. The present study has clearly demonstrated a potential of woody biomass resources to be converted into useful chemicals in supercritical water. In addition, the products derived from cellulose and hemicelluloses were effectively separated from lignin-derived products. This raises the possibility of converting whole biomass substrates to alternative chemicals, and provides ample opportunities for human beings to produce useful biomass-based products as chemicals and bio-fuels W ithout using fossil resources... 

However, most of these routes are still economically unattractive and the possibility of creating an equivalent petrochemistry based on biomass, which depends on raising the conversion efficiency and establishing cascades in which the residues of one product serve as inputs for another, still suffers from the relatively unattractive products derived from hemicellulose and lignin. Therefore, to bring back biomass into the chemical business , the utilization of biomass must be enhanced by integrating it into biorefinery (Fig. 2). 

Recent attempts aim at the controlled transformation of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin to platform molecules for a potential future biorefinery scenario. In this regard, the U.S. Department of Energy has published studies on potential future platform molecules that could be derived from renewable resources [35, 36]. Tailored transformation of biomass to these platform chemicals could serve as a starting point for biofuel production. This would allow the development of comprehensive biorefinery approaches that incorporate both the production of biofuels and chemicals. The... 

Bio-oil from rapid pyrolysis is usually a dark brown, free-flowing liquid having a distinctive smoky odor. It has significantly different physical and chemical properties compared to the liquid from slow pyrolysis processes, which is more like a tar. Bio-oils are multicomponent mixtures comprised of different size molecules derived primarily from depolymerization and fragmentation reactions of the three key biomass building blocks cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. Therefore, the elemental composition of biooil resembles that of biomass rather than that of petroleum oils. Basic properties of biooils are shown in Table 33.7. More detail on fuel-related characteristics is provided in the literature.571... 

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