Abstract
The gasification of biomass is one of the most prominent technologies for the conversion of the raw material feedstock to polymers, useful chemical substances, and energy. The main engineering challenge during the processing of wastes is the presence of tars in gaseous reaction products, which could make this operation methodology unsuccessfully due to the blockage of separating particle filters, fuel line flow, and substantial transfer losses. Catalytic hydrocarbon cracking appears to be a promising developing approach for their optimal removal. However, it is still highly desirable to enhance the catalysts’ activity kinetics, selectivity, stability, resistance to (ir)reversible coke deposition, and regeneration solutions. The purpose of this Review is to provide a comparative systematic evaluation of the various natural, synthetic, and hybrid ways to convert the model molecular compounds into benzene, toluene, xylene, (poly)aromatics, syngas, and others. The recent scientific progress, including calcite...
Highlights
Today, alternative renewable energy has a promising potential and was extensively studied in recent years due to fossil fuel depletion, global warming, and serious problems related to environmental pollution.[1,2] Biomass is one of the main alternative renewable energy sources together with solar and wind energy, where the latter two are less reliable due to the fluctuation of wind and sunlight availability.[3,4]Biomass is a biological material which stores energy through photosynthesis process in the presence of sunlight and basically derived from living organism like plants, crop residues, animals, etc.[5]
The purpose of this Review is to provide an systematic overview of various types of catalysts that have been used in cracking of biomass tar or its model compounds into BTX aromatics
The advantages and disadvantages of the different types of catalysts are summarized below: (1) Natural catalysts have been widely applied for the steam reforming of tar since they are inexpensive, abundant, and disposable, but their catalytic activities are lower than those of the synthesized catalysts, and they have especially low mechanical strength, hindering their use in fluidized-bed reactors
Summary
Alternative renewable energy has a promising potential and was extensively studied in recent years due to fossil fuel depletion, global warming, and serious problems related to environmental pollution.[1,2] Biomass is one of the main alternative renewable energy sources together with solar and wind energy, where the latter two are less reliable due to the fluctuation of wind and sunlight availability.[3,4]. Biomass is a biological material which stores energy through photosynthesis process in the presence of sunlight and basically derived from living organism like plants, crop residues, animals, etc.[5] Biomass consists of a wide range of organic materials, which are generally composed of cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin, lipids, proteins, simple sugars, starches, inorganic constituents, and a fraction of water. The technologies for biomass conversion into chemical intermediates (sugars, organic acids), commodity chemicals (solvents, lubricants, surfactants, adhesives, inks), fine chemicals (pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals), and materials (renewable plastics, natural fibers) are based on four main routes: direct combustion, physical conversion, biochemical conversion, and thermochemical conversion (Figure 1).[8,9] In the biochemical conversion route, the biomass is converted into ethanol, acetone, butanol, hydrogen, or methane by aerobic fermentation or anaerobic digestion.[9] The thermochemical conversion route has some advantages over the Received: March 4, 2019 Revised: April 18, 2019 Accepted: April 23, 2019 Published: April 23, 2019.
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