and Chemicals

Lin Mei Wu1, Chun Hui Zhou1’2’*, Dong Shen Tong1, Wei Hua Yu1

^Research Group for Advanced Materials & Sustainable Catalysis (AMSC), Breeding Base of State Key Laboratory
of Green Chemistry Synthesis Technology, College of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science,
Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, Zhej’iang, China,

2The Institute for Agriculture and the Environment, University of Southern Queensland, Queensland, Australia
*Corresponding author email: clay@zjut. edu. cn, Chun. Zhou@usq. edu. au

OUTLINE

Introduction 243

Pyrolysis of Biomass 244

Fast Pyrolysis 244

Catalytic Pyrolysis 244

Reactors 245

Entrained-Fow Reactors 245

Ablative Reactors 245

Bubbling Fluid Bed Reactor and Circulating Fluidized Beds 245

Rotating Cone Reactor 246

New Systems 247

Gasification of Biomass 247

INTRODUCTION

Thermochemical processing usually refers to the one in which solid reactants are heated at high tempera­tures for a certain period to yield the desired products. In modern times, the thermochemical processing has often been used in industry for the production of fuels, chemicals and materials. Today, the production of fuels, chemicals and materials from biomass become attrac­tive because it has renewability, one of the advantages
over the fossil oil sources (Zhou et al., 2011; Wu et al.,

2013) . In a sense, thermochemical processing of biomass is not a new technique. Wood combustion for heating and cooking, a method that humanity have been using since prehistoric time can be regarded as a thermochemical processing of biomass. However, to­day’s need for thermal processing of biomass is far beyond combustion. The combination of thermal pro­cessing and catalysis is bringing about new opportu­nities for using biomass to produce renewable fuels,

Bioenergy Research: Advances and Applications http://dx. doi. org/10.1016/B978-0-444-59561-4.00015-2

chemicals and materials (Brown, 2011). The past three decades have witnessed rapid progress in catalytically thermochemical technologies (Zhou et al., 2008; Huber et al., 2006; Fan et al., 2009). Pyrolysis, gasification and hydrothermal liquefaction are major methods frequently tested for the catalytically thermochemical conversion of biomass (Zhou et al., 2011). Other ther­mochemical technologies could be regarded as modifi­cation, in more or less ways, of these three methods. Relevant studies and progress have shown that these technologies are promising alternatives to process diverse biomass feedstocks to yield fine chemicals and biofuels.