Grants and Contracts Details
Description
The thermochemical conversion of agricultural and forestry biomass into value-added chemicals
and materials holds great promise for improving industrial sustainability and increasing markets
available for US crop producers. The proposed project wiH investigate the conversion of wood
waste to value-added materials by mild solvent extraction (MSE).
MSE is an extractive process which utilizes a heavy solvent to directly convert biomass to liquid
products, gases, and solid chars without the need for hydrogen overpressure or catalysis at
conditions which favor the fonnation of heavy products such as pitch. MSE is proven to be a
viable route for the conversion of coal into chemicals and materials. The extension of this Imv
cost process to the conversion of biomass, although offering new challenges, is a logical choice
for reducing domestic dependence on foreign petroleum crude, creating new "green", carbon
neutral processes for producing chemicals and materials that are currently being produced iTom
fossil sources, and expanding the market for biomass to increase farm income.
Biomass is heterogeneous in elemental composition and may have high moisture content. The
use ofMSE is expected to capitalize on these factors, specifically targeting the production of
heavy liquids (pitches), chemical. feedstocks (phenols, cresols, and oxygenates), and carbon
materials. Other thermochemical processes are either economically challenged due to the need
for high pressure hydrogenation and catalysis (direct liquefaction, solvolysis) or unsuited for the
production of heavy liquid products due to operating conditions which primarily favor thermal
cracking and the formation oflight oils and gases (pyrolysis, indirect liquefaction).
Status | Finished |
---|---|
Effective start/end date | 7/1/03 → 6/30/04 |
Funding
- KY Science and Technology Co Inc: $15,000.00
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