Waste biomass production technology

An economically attractive approach to commercial production of diesel fuel substitutes from natural biomass liquids in North America appears to be the direct conversion of waste biomass oils to super cetane by catalytic hydrotreatment. This technology is expected to be commercialized first in Canada where it was developed. The availability of large amounts of feedstock... 

Bio-fuels should be not in competition vith food. Therefore, new technologies need to be developed to efficiently convert cellulosic, fiber or wood-based, waste biomass into fermentable sugars. Similarly, to make biodiesel competitive as a transport fuel, efforts should be directed to diversify the use of raw materials and to improve the processes while making them more economic by developing added-value uses for by-products such as glycerol. Catalysis plays a critical role in achieving these objectives [9]. 

Mozaffarian, M., Zwart, R.W.R., Boerrigter, H., Deurwaarder, E.P. (2004) Biomass and Waste-related SNG Production Technologies Technical, economic and ecological feasibility. 

It is important to recall that the research into bio-based surfactants extracted by chemical methods from waste biomass is still in its early days. As such, the production technology that will be described in the next section is still quite close to laboratory protocols and not industrial processes. As will be described in more detail, the quality of these surfactants is inferior to the quality of the biosurfactants produced (higher CMC, higher surface tension after CMC). However, the potential for high throughput, abundance of the biomass and the current economics of wastewater biosolid handling make this an interesting alternative for some applications that will be described later in this chapter. 

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