Hydrothermal treatment of biomass for energy and chemicals

Published Date

doi:10.1016/j.energy.2016.06.148

In Press, Corrected Proof — Note to users

Author 

• Maša Knez Hrnčič
• Gregor Kravanja
• Željko Knez ^,

• University of Maribor, Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Laboratory for Separation Processes and Product Design, Smetanova ulica 17, 2000, Maribor, Slovenia

Received 18 December 2015. Revised 25 May 2016. Accepted 28 June 2016. Available online 19 July 2016.

Highlights

• Overview of current high pressure processes for treatment of biomass.
• •
  Conversion of waste biomass to biofuels and biobased chemicals.
• •
  Future perspective of hydrothermal technology as a tool to obtain advanced materials.
• •
  Supercritical fluids to improve the efficiency of the energy production processes.

Abstract 

Pyrolysis oils are a product of fast pyrolysis or liquefaction of biomass. Those dark brown organic liquids are chemically a complex mixture and/or emulsion of water and degradation products of lignin (e.g. guaiacols, catechols, syringols, vanillins), cellulose (such as levoglucosan, dehydrated sugars, di-sugars, furancarboxaldehydes), and hemicellulose (such as acetic acid, formic acid). Composition strongly depends on conditions of pyrolysis process and great variety of biomass feedstock such as grasses and trees, and other sources of ligno-cellulosic material, derived from municipal waste, food processing wastes, forestry wastes and pulp and paper by-products. The present contribution will present an overview of current high pressure processes for treatment of biomass for production of energy and chemicals as well as the fundamental studies of phase equilibria of the systems pyrolysis oil/gas, which are crucial in biorefinery process design. In particular, phase equilibria of binary and ternary systems consisting of pyrolysis oil/supercritical fluid (pyrolysis oil/CO₂) and (pyrolysis oil/H₂) was studied in addition to the phase behavior of ternary systems of (pyrolysis oil/diesel/CO₂) and (pyrolysis oil/tail water/CO₂). These data are important for design of separation processes as well as for the application of these substances for commercial fuels.

Keywords

Supercritical fluids

Hydrothermal reactions

Biobased chemicals

Advanced materials

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  Corresponding author.

© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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