Affordable and Clean Energy (SDG 7), Responsible Consumption and Production (SDG 12)
Production of high value platform chemicals from pyrolysis of biomass
Iram Razaq* Aston University, UK
Climate change is still a very concerning global issue which has not slowed or stopped despite efforts by scientists, with fossil fuels being the main contributor to global CO2 emissions. This research is an opportunity to move away from fossil fuels and use alternative feedstocks from renewables and waste to reduce CO 2 emissions. Waste-paper and especially cardboard is a major disposal issue for industry. In 2018, Defra reported that 3.7 million tonnes of cardboard and paper waste was generated in the UK. The majority of this is recycled with the remainder going to incineration or landfill. Biomass is organic matter that is considered a renewable resource which is organic matter from plants and animals. Plants are made up of cellulose (40-50%), hemicellulose (20-30%) and lignin (20-30%) with a little ash. Cardboard mainly consists of cellulose. Since the cardboard waste is relatively clean, it is an ideal feedstock for producing speciality or platform chemicals. Fast pyrolysis is a thermochemical decomposition method that produces high yields of liquid and some char and gas in different ratios depending on the operating parameters. Levoglucosan is platform chemical that can be used as a building block for other high value chemicals. Research has been conducted on cellulose pyrolysis to produce levoglucosan and has found that the purity of the cellulose affects the amount of levoglucosan produced. However, most of this research has been conducted on pure cellulose as a model compound or with biomass, which respectively gives very high yields or very low yields due to the cracking of the levoglucosan into smaller compounds owing to other components, particularly due to the presence of ash. Waste cardboard contains little or no ash, which will minimise levoglucosan cracking and result in much higher yields. This research aims to develop a method of extracting, refining and deriving platform and speciality chemicals, such as levoglucosan, from cellulose obtained from waste cardboard. For this project, the oil is the focus product as this would contain the compounds of value such as levoglucosan and other high-value platform chemicals. This work is novel as no other study has investigated the potential of cardboard as a relatively ‘clean’ cellulose feedstock to produce levoglucosan through the well-developed conversion route of fast pyrolysis. The development of a method to produce and recover levoglucosan from waste-cardboard materials opens up new avenues into improved production of chemicals and decreased waste disposal. This contributes towards a renewable economy as a waste product is being utilised to produce high value chemicals. The production of platform chemicals through this route will not only be beneficial for the waste industry but also open up opportunities for the chemical, pharmaceutical and cosmetics industry for the utilisation of these platform chemicals. This offers enormously valuable opportunities to replace traditional fossil-derived chemicals and potentially new ones with renewable products and discover new products to displace traditional materials.
P17
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