Biomass: A Renewable Source of Fuels Chemicals and Carbon Materials

摘要

Fossil fuels have been long used as a source of carbon for synthetizing the fuels, chemicals, and carbon-based materials we use on a daily basis. However, as we all know, the massive utilization of fossil fuels is associated with a number of economic, political, and environmental issues, which is pushing governments to search for renewable alternatives. Biomass (i.e., any organic material that comes from plants and animals), being the only source of renewable carbon available on our planet, is the natural replacement for fossil fuels for the generation of these products. Unlike fossil fuel feeds, biomass feedstocks (e.g., starches, sugars, lipids, and lignocelluloses) are highly oxygenated, very reactive, and chemically complex. As a result, new processes, reaction conditions, and catalytic materials will need to be developed in order to accomplish this transition. This tremendous effort is currently being led both by academia and industry, which are working in parallel to develop, improve, and finally scale some of these technologies to the industrial level. The journal Molecules has witnessed this effort by publishing within the last two years a significant number of excellent contributions in the field of biomass conversion and valorization. The present Editorial is aimed at summarizing these hot papers, providing the readers with a vision of their relevance and potential to provide groundbreaking technologies in the near future.