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Chemicals from Biomass

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Handbook of Climate Change Mitigation

Abstract

The different biomass conversion routes to chemicals will be described in this chapter. Chapter 25, “Biomass as Feedstock,” gives an overview of the methods used to obtain chemicals from biomass. These processes along with some other chemical conversions can be used for the manufacture of chemicals from biomass. A list of chemicals compiled based on the carbon number in the chemicals will be discussed in this chapter. Some of these chemicals are presently made from nonrenewable feedstock like natural gas and petroleum while others are new chemicals that have potential to replace nonrenewable feedstock-based chemicals. Transesterification process is used to produce propylene chain of chemicals from glycerin. Fermentation is used to produce ethanol which is converted to ethylene and can be used for ethylene chain of chemicals. The chemicals discussed in this chapter include recent advances in chemistry and processes discussed include new frontiers for research in biomass to chemical production.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chemical Engineering Department, Louisiana State University, 727 Martin Luther King Drive West Apt 714W, 45220, Baton Rouge, LA, USA

    Debalina Sengupta PhD

  2. Minerals Processing Research Institute, Louisiana State University, 1139 Energy, Coast and Environment Building, 70803, Baton Rouge, LA, USA

    Dr. Ralph W. Pike

Authors
  1. Debalina Sengupta PhD
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  2. Dr. Ralph W. Pike
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Debalina Sengupta PhD or Ralph W. Pike .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Mississippi, Mississippi, USA

    Wei-Yin Chen

  2. National Center for Physical Acoustics, University of Mississippi, Mississippi, USA

    John Seiner

  3. National Institute of Advanced Industrial, Science and Technology (AIST), Nagoya, Japan

    Toshio Suzuki

  4. The Vienna University of Technology (TU Vienna), Wien, Austria

    Maximilian Lackner

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Sengupta, D., Pike, R.W. (2012). Chemicals from Biomass. In: Chen, WY., Seiner, J., Suzuki, T., Lackner, M. (eds) Handbook of Climate Change Mitigation. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7991-9_28

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