Department of Materials Science and Engineering

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Browsing Department of Materials Science and Engineering by Author "Onwona-Agyeman, B."

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    Thermochemical Conversion of Biomass for Fuels & Chemicals at the USDA
    (2017-04-05) Boateng, A.A.; Onwona-Agyeman, B.
    Lignocellulosic biomass is the most abundant renewable carbon resource available for the production of biofuels and bio-based chemicals. To harness this biogenic carbon biochemical or thermochemical conversion technologies are employed. Thermochemical methods for the conversion of biomass comprise i) pyrolysis, the heating in the absence of air, ii) gasification, heating under partial oxygen conditions, and iii) combustion, the heating in excess oxygen environment. Among these, pyrolysis is the only route that has the full potential to provide small design footprint that is adaptable to the farm/forest setting and with the capability to handle a wide array of agricultural residues. Done properly, thermochemical liquefaction pathways, such as pyrolysis, offer a unique potential to directly produce hydrocarbon fuel intermediates i.e., refinery fuel blendstocks that can potentially enter existing petroleum refinery flow streams without added expenses of creating a whole new refinery infrastructure. The talk will provide an overview of on-farm pyrolysis biorefining research at the USDA highlighting various scales of bio-oil production, defunctionalization of the organic oxygenates contained in the bio-oil to drop-in fuels and separation/extraction of valuable chemical coproducts with the added benefit of enhancing the economic viability of a pyrolysis based bio-refinery