Biofuels || Thermochemical Conversion of Biomass to Biofuels

✍ Scribed by Bhaskar, Thallada

• Book ID: 121295011
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 222 KB
• Edition: 2
• Category: Article
• ISBN: 0123850991
• DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-12-385099-7.00003-6

✦ Synopsis

Progress toward a sustainable energy supply is without doubt one of the biggest challenges that mankind has ever faced. Long-term economic and environmental concerns have resulted in a great amount of research in the past couple of decades on renewable sources of liquid fuels to replace fossil fuels. The only current sustainable source of organic carbon is plant biomass and biofuels. Biomass is an abundant and renewable source of carbon. Apart from the transportation sector, biomass is also a promising feedstock for the chemical industry due to the presence of a wide range of functionalities available with the lignocellulosic biomass (the natural polymer). The thermochemical conversion methods (combustion, gasification, pyrolysis, liquefaction, etc.) for conversion of lignocellulosic biomass into useful products have been reviewed, along with their advantages and impacts. Pyrolysis, as one of the promising thermochemical conversion routes, plays a vital role in biomass conversion. The future of biofuels as a sustainable source of energy is directly linked to the maximum use of byproducts that will make its production more cost effective.