Biofuels-2015 - Recent progress in the thermo catalytic processing of biomass into advanced fuels

摘要

A high interest has arisen in recent years in novelprocesses for the transformation of different types ofbiomass into advanced biofuels. The use of non-edible biomass sources and the overall sustainabilityof the process are very important factors to beconsidered in the development of new routes for theproduction of second-generation biofuels. In thisway, lignocellulosic biomass appears as a veryinteresting source of biomass due to its independencywith the food market, its low cost and highavailability in the form of agriculture and forestresidues or as energy crops. he "traditionaldomestic" use in developing countries (fuelwood,charcoal and agricultural residues) for householdcooking (e.g. the "three stone fire"), lighting andspace-heating. In this role-the efficiency ofconversion of the biomass to useful energy generallylies between 5% and 15%. the "traditional industrial"use of biomass for the processing of tobacco, tea, pigiron, bricksandtiles, etc, where the biomass feedstockis often regarded as a "free" energy source. There isgenerally little incentive to use the biomassefficiently so conversion of the feedstock to usefulenergy commonly occurs at an efficiency of 15% orless. Modern industrial Industries are experimentingwith technologically advanced thermal conversiontechnologies which are itemised below. Expectedconversion efficiencies are between 30 and 55%.newer "chemical conversion" technologies ("fuelcell") which are capable of by-passing the entropy-dictated Carnot limit which describes the maximumtheoretical conversion efficiencies of thermal units.biological conversion techniques, includinganaerobic digestion for biogas production andfermentation for alcohol.