Biomass and Bioenergy

Biography

Biography: Marcelo Maciel Pereira

Abstract

A conventional refinery is based on mature processes that obtain standard products from a large variety of non- renewable feeds. Despite enormous benefits to modern civilization,3 the adopted production and consumption patterns paradoxically put us at environmental risk. Therefore it is mandatory a paradigm shift to decrease the carbon footprint without reducing the energy access to people. Biomass is composed  of  functionalized  biopolymers (lignin-cellulose) based on sugars- and phenol-derivatives.  On  the  other  hand, refinery processes have been designed to operate on poorly reactive compounds like hydrocarbons. The bridge between these two  remarkable  worlds  was  archived  in two steps:  1- by transforming the biomass into a bio-crude, which was produced by ketalyzation    in    acetone    [1,    2] and acetylation  reactions  in  acetic  anhydride [3] under mild temperature conditions (around 100^oC). This black bio-crude (density around 1.0-1.3 gmL^-1  and CHO composition of 60, 8 and 32 respectively) is chemically distinct of any other bio-feed so far. 2 -The transformation of bio-crude and   model   compounds   by   the   fluid catalytic cracking and hydrotreatment into monoaromatic and saturated hydrocarbons respectively [4]. Herein the results of the fluidized bed pilot plant in laboratory scale of both model test and bio-crude are presented. For instance, a representative ketal-derivative, 1,2:5,6-di-O- isopropylidene-α-D-glucofuranose (DX) mixture up to 50% in n-hexane achieved three main goals: small coke formation, remarkable   selectivity   to   hydrocarbons and slight improvement in n-hexane conversion as presented in Table 1. Moreover,   no   oxygenated   compounds were  observed  in  the  liquid  phase,  thus resulting in a drop-in fraction in the fuel pool. The bio-base economy derived from this concept fits the requirements to be produced, transported and processed like wise to the up- to downstream in the oil industry.  Finally,  as  a  consequence  the bio-crude  behaves  like  hydrocarbons under realistic refinery process, oil could be partially substituted by bio-crude or, in the future; an entirely green refinery could operate using renewable feeds.

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