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Bio‐Refinery as the Bio‐Inspired Process to Bulk Chemicals
Author(s) -
Sanders Johan,
Scott Elinor,
Weusthuis Ruud,
Mooibroek Hans
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
macromolecular bioscience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.924
H-Index - 105
eISSN - 1616-5195
pISSN - 1616-5187
DOI - 10.1002/mabi.200600223
Subject(s) - biomass (ecology) , refinery , fossil fuel , environmental science , waste management , environmentally friendly , biochemical engineering , process (computing) , petrochemical , process engineering , chemistry , computer science , environmental engineering , engineering , ecology , biology , operating system
This paper describes several examples of knowledge‐intensive technologies for the production of chemicals from biomass, which take advantage of the biomass structure in a more efficient way than the production of fuels or electricity alone. The depletion in fossil feedstocks, increasing oil prices, and the ecological problems associated with CO 2 emissions are forcing the development of alternative resources for energy, transport fuels, and chemicals, such as the replacement of fossil resources with CO 2 neutral biomass. Allied with this is the conversion of crude oil products utilizes primary products (ethylene, etc.) and their conversion into either materials or (functional) chemicals with the aid of co‐reagents such as ammonia, by various process steps to introduce functionalities such as ‐NH 2 into the simple structures of the primary products. Conversely, many products found in biomass often contain functionalities. Therefore, it is attractive to exploit this in order to by‐pass the use, and preparation of, co‐reagents as well as to eliminate various process steps by utilizing suitable biomass‐based precursors for the production of chemicals.