VAPOURS AND LIQUIDS

6.1 INTRODUCTION

In all thermochemical conversion processes, catalysts are being increasingly used to enhance favourable reactions and inhibit unfavourable reactions. In addition, catalytic processes are both available and are being developed to upgrade the primary products of thermal conversion to higher quality and higher value fuels and chemicals as summarised in Table 6.1 for a range of thermally processed products. This study focuses on fast pyrolysis processes and liquid products as a means to increase the value of resultant products at minimal cost. While reference is made to many of the research activities involving the use of catalysts in biomass conversion (see, for example, 1), attention is focused on particular problems requiring short term solution to enable the benefits of these technologies to be realised.