Beyond Petrochemicals: The Renewable Chemicals Industry

The use of renewable resources has attracted significant attention in recent years for many different reasons.The use of biomass as a resource has developed rapidly in recent years, and it will become an important contributor to our available resources in the future. Biomass sets itself aside from the other renewable resources, since the energy it contains is stored as chemical bonds. This characteristic allows biomass to be used for several purposes apart from electricity and heat generation, such as the production of liquid fuels and chemicals.

Indeed, biomass is the only renewable source of useful carbon atoms. Although biomass is annually renew- able, it is still a scarce and limited resource, especially when produced in a sustainable manner, and it is important to use it in the most efficient way. This Essay argues for the production of select chemicals, thereby effectively replacing petroleum, as an efficient use and illustrates some of the current efforts that are made in the chemical industry towards adoption of biomass as a feedstock.

… The full article is available to subscribers of “Angewandte Chemie” for download here.

Keywords: biomass utilization, platform chemicals, higher-value products, electricity, deoxygenation, value chains

Source

Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2011, 50, 10502 – 10509, 2011-10-05, Canadian Biomass Magazine, 2011-11-15.

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