There are numerous ways to convert biomass to fuel or raw materials for the petrochemical industry. Yet there is still much room for improvement when it comes to efficiency and versatility of these conversion processes. Assistant professor in the department of inorganic chemistry and catalysts of Utrecht University (UU) dr. Harry Bitter, and dr. Daan van Es of Food & Biobased Products of Wageningen University and Research (WUR) collaborate on a CatchBio project to develop solid acid catalysts to improve the transesterification of biomass.(The photo shows dr Harry Bitter)
Transesterification is the process that converts oils and fats to biomass. It is already used to produce biodiesel, says Bitter: “Current processes use alkaline homogeneous catalysts. The downside is that you can’t use acidic biomass material, because that would render the catalysts ineffective. And the current processes always lead to salts as a by-product, that have to be removed from the end product. The solution is to use solid acidic catalysts. These catalysts exist, but their use for transesterification is not well explored. In practice they are currently not active enough to get the process going.” Activity is always an issue with catalysis, Bitter explains: “The active sites on the catalyst molecules have to be exposed to the reactants, so we cannot use blocks of dense, solid material. Another challenge is to keep the reaction mixture stable. For example, many catalysts dissolve partially in methanol, a compound frequently involved in biomass conversion. We want to develop new catalysts to overcome these challenges.”
Dedicated industry
The research benefits from the co-operation between UU and WUR, Van Es says: “The researchers at the UU are very good at catalyst synthesis and characterisation. We have much experience on making suitable raw materials for further processing out of biomass, which is often a mixture of various compounds.” Collaborative research has other advantages, Van Es explains: “Of course, knowledge sharing is beneficial to everyone involved. And we can use each other’s research facilities and equipment, significantly reducing the research costs.”
The research benefits from the co-operation between UU and WUR, Van Es says: “The researchers at the UU are very good at catalyst synthesis and characterisation. We have much experience on making suitable raw materials for further processing out of biomass, which is often a mixture of various compounds.” Collaborative research has other advantages, Van Es explains: “Of course, knowledge sharing is beneficial to everyone involved. And we can use each other’s research facilities and equipment, significantly reducing the research costs.”
Bitter: “The field of biomass-related catalysis research has its roots in the petrochemical industry. Biomass is much more complex than oil. For instance, it contains much more oxygen, which makes it harder to process.” Furthermore, Van Es says, there is a worldwide infrastructure for processing oil: “There is an entire industry dedicated to distilling and cracking crude oil. It is much harder to do the same for biomass.”
A biofuel-based economy will not become reality on short term, says Van Es: “Current methods cannot produce enough fuel to match consumption. And developing new, third generation biomass conversion methods will take another ten to fifteen years. Although there are major differences per region: in Brazil for instance, a large part of the automotive fleet already runs on bio-ethanol, which also serves as a feedstock for bio-polyethylene and bio-PVC.”
A biofuel-based economy will not become reality on short term, says Van Es: “Current methods cannot produce enough fuel to match consumption. And developing new, third generation biomass conversion methods will take another ten to fifteen years. Although there are major differences per region: in Brazil for instance, a large part of the automotive fleet already runs on bio-ethanol, which also serves as a feedstock for bio-polyethylene and bio-PVC.”
Forefront
But biomass is not just an alternative source of fuel, Van Es says: “Twenty million tons of fuel is gone before you know it. But twenty million tons of raw materials for plastics is a significant amount. I think that there will be a transition from the use of biomass as a fuel to converting it to raw materials for the petrochemical industry.” Bitter: “On the other hand, about ninety percent of the oil is currently used for fuel. That percentage may increase if biomass fuel takes off, lowering the demand for biomass as raw material for plastics. But either way, biomass will become an important resource.”
The Netherlands are at the forefront of biomass conversion research. CatchBio plays an important role in that, says Van Es: “It facilitates research financially, and it focuses on collaboration. It brings researchers together. As a consequence of this, we already see all kinds of new synergies emerge. I doubt if this would have happened without CatchBio.”
But biomass is not just an alternative source of fuel, Van Es says: “Twenty million tons of fuel is gone before you know it. But twenty million tons of raw materials for plastics is a significant amount. I think that there will be a transition from the use of biomass as a fuel to converting it to raw materials for the petrochemical industry.” Bitter: “On the other hand, about ninety percent of the oil is currently used for fuel. That percentage may increase if biomass fuel takes off, lowering the demand for biomass as raw material for plastics. But either way, biomass will become an important resource.”
The Netherlands are at the forefront of biomass conversion research. CatchBio plays an important role in that, says Van Es: “It facilitates research financially, and it focuses on collaboration. It brings researchers together. As a consequence of this, we already see all kinds of new synergies emerge. I doubt if this would have happened without CatchBio.”