Abstract
Hybrid processes, featuring biological conversion of lignocellulose to small molecules followed by chemo-catalytic conversion to larger molecules suitable for difficult-to-electrify transport modes, are a promising route to biomass-derived fuels in demand for climate stabilization.
Highlights
Producing transportation fuels from biomass is a substantial endeavor in the world today, and has long been a focus of research and development
As reviewed elsewhere,[17,18] biological conversion of lignocellulose involves lower temperatures and pressures but longer reaction times compared to thermochemical processing
Acknowledging other cellulolytic anaerobes, including those yet-to-be-discovered, we focus on Clostridium thermocellum in light of its distinctively effectiveness at lignocellulose solubilization and because it has received the most study among cellulolytic anaerobes to date
Summary
Producing transportation fuels from biomass is a substantial endeavor in the world today, and has long been a focus of research and development. Pumping, mixing, heat transfer, and mass transfer become progressively more challenging at solids loadings approaching this threshold.[64] Strategies to ameliorate these challenges have been investigated, including partial hydrolysis in advance of introducing solids into the vessel in which fermentation occurs,[65] and fed-batch operation.[64,66,67] Both of these strategies take advantage of the dramatic liquefaction that accompanies biologically-mediated solubilization of lignocellulose (e.g., viscosity reduction by about 30-fold for pretreated lignocellulose[35,36] and as much as 2000-fold for unpretreated lignocellulose),[70] with most of this reduction occurring during the first 10% of the reaction Even with such strategies, solids handling constraints limit product concentrations for lignocellulosic feedstocks to lower values than can be achieved with starch-rich feedstocks. Some approaches to doing so are explored
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