Biofuels From Lignocellulosic Biomass by Boot Michael

Author:Boot, Michael
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783527685301
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Published: 2015-09-28T00:00:00+00:00

5.2 Production Pathways

Around 170 billion tons of biomass are produced annually through the photosynthesis process, among which approximately 75% (128 billion tons) are carbohydrates [8]. Only 3–4% of those carbohydrates are consumed by humans as food or used for other purposes, and the rest are not used, most of which are viewed as feedstock for the Green Chemistry of the future [9]. McCormick et al. estimated that by the year 2050, there will potentially be 80+ billion gallons of annual biofuel capacity in the United States, compared to 400 million tons available currently [10]. Technically, it is possible to convert those carbohydrates into useful products such as liquid alkanes, ethers, and amino alcohols [1].

In 2007, a breakthrough in the production of DMF using biomass was made by Román-Leshkov et al. [3]. The first-generation bioethanol mainly uses edible corn and sugarcane as feedstock, competing with food supply. The proposed production method of DMF, as shown in Figure 5.1, does not compete with food supply since it can use wasted biomass as feedstock. The process involves two steps: firstly, three oxygen atoms are removed through a dehydration reaction to produce hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF); secondly, two oxygen atoms are removed through a hydrogenolysis reaction to produce DMF. HMF, a versatile and multifunctional compound, is identified as one of the most important intermediates to a variety of useful chemicals such as DMF. However, there are major barriers to convert biomass into HMF in cost-efficient and environmental-friendly ways. The feedstock for the production of HMF can be fructose, glucose, and polysaccharides, among which, fructose seems to be better than glucose since glucose has competing pathways that lead to the formation of by-products [3, 11, 12]. Fructose can be obtained by hydrolyzing biomass, during which glucose is also produced. Glucose can be converted into fructose by an isomerization process [13].

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