Pyrolysis liquids from lignocellulosic biomass have the potential to be used as a feed for aromatics such as benzene, toluene, and xylenes (BTX) using catalytic upgrading with zeolites. We here report an experimental study on the conversion of various pyrolysis oil fractions to determine the most suitable one for BTX synthesis. For this purpose, the pyrolysis liquid was fractionated using several extraction/distillation steps to give four fractions with different chemical compositions. The fractions were analyzed in detail using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, elemental analysis, gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, Karl-Fischer titration, and gel permeation chromatography. Catalytic pyrolysis experiments were carried out using a tandem microreactor with H-ZSM-5 (23) as the catalyst. The highest BTX yield of 24% (on a carbon and dry basis) was obtained using the fractions enriched in phenolics, whereas all others gave far lower yields (4.4-9%, on a carbon and dry basis). Correlations were established between the chemical composition of the feed fraction and the BTX yield. These findings support the concept of a pyrolysis biorefinery, where the pyrolysis liquid is separated into well-defined fractions before further dedicated catalytic conversions to biobased chemicals and biofuels using tailored catalysts.
While tourism and air transport are recovering from the impacts of the Covid pandemic, it seems timely to draw a synthetic view of future stakes combining the following topics: the greenhouse gas emissions scenarios for tourism, regarding which recent work has improved their understanding; the climatic impact of aviation, almost 60% of which is due to non-CO 2 emissions; alternative fuels (biofuels, E-fuels, hydrogen) and engine designs (fuel cells...) which are complex and controversial issues, and whose potentials should be assessed regarding their timing, environmental impacts, and their ability to meet long distance travel requirements. This paper analyses the extent to which the new options regarding fuels and engines can help decarbonize tourism and air transport. The answer is that they can partly contribute but do not render obsolete previous work on substitutions between types of tourism (short versus long distance...), between transport modes (ground transport versus air), length of stay, etc. Following this step, the paper deals with the position of aviation players and the type of arguments they use. We conclude on the necessity to make strategic choices among the options to avoid wasting investments.
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The government of Ukraine has adopted the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) with clear goals and a roadmap to facilitate its energy transition towards renewable sources. This is done because of both climate concerns as well as reasons related to Ukraine’s foreign policy which led the government to decide that Ukraine should work more on its own energy independence. Currently the percentage of renewable energy sources in Ukraine is among the lowest of the entire Europe and there is only slow development in terms of the growth of the sector, even though there is a lot of available biomass, given the large and flat surface of the country with a well-developed agricultural sector. As in most countries in the world, there is a quite intensive and well-developed debate in Ukraine about the energy sector, energy usage and the necessary transition towards more renewable types of energy. One of the consequences of it is that Ukraine is one of the partner countries in the Paris agreement and committed itself to reducing the amount of greenhouse gas emissions in the future. That means that a transformation towards renewable energy is needed, even though currently in Ukraine only a low percentage of energy is generated by sustainable sources. The general picture is that in Ukraine the development of the renewable energy sector is going not as fast as could have been. In other words, there are several barriers present that hinder the energy transition. One of the issues behind such a barrier may be a limited access to technology, or problems with legislation or other issues which may be unknown so far, but certainly relevant for foreign investors. The Ukrainian government adopted the so-called Renewable Energy Directive (RED), set goals for the energy transition and support the transition itself. In some areas progress was made, for example in the growing number of biomass fired boilers, but still Ukraine remains one of the European countries with the lowest percentage of renewable energy production. Therefore, in order to identify currently existing barriers and help to find possible applications of new technologies in Ukraine, the Dutch Enterprise Agency (Rijksdienst voor Ondernemerschap) commissioned this study. It was done within the framework of the Partners in Business on Bioenergy program. The focus of this study is on analysing the renewable energy sector, with special attention for biomass, in the form of biomass-based heating and biomass for biofuels. Of course, other parts of the renewable energy sector such as solar and wind energy are also taken into consideration. The second part consists of a case study to determine the business case for direct processing of sugar beets with Betaprocess as a possible application of biomass to biofuel production in Ukraine. The third study is aiming at determining the amount of biomass that can safely be taken from the fields, without negatively affecting the fertility of the soil. These sub-studies mentioned in the previous paragraph offer a better understanding of the renewable energy market in general and biomass/biofuel applications in particular. This study sheds light on several important questions that entrepreneurs and/or other foreign investors may have about investing in Ukraine. Even though it is well-known that doing business in Ukraine is challenging, it is also very important to have a clear picture of the opportunities that this country offers, within the limits that nature sets, in order to avoid negative consequences like soil degradation. The objective of this report is to find out about which opportunities and barriers exist in the Ukrainian transition towards renewable energy generation, to calculate the profitability of new biomass-processing technologies as well as finding out limitations of biomass usage.
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Op weg naar de Biobased Economy zijn er nationaal en internationaal belangrijke vraagstukken die om oplossing vragen. Het HBO levert met praktijkgericht onderzoek een relevante bijdrage aan de realisatie van innovaties op weg naar een biobased economy. Hogescholen staan met hun onderzoek relatief dicht bij de afzetmarkten, die voor de Biobased Economy nog sterk in ontwikkeling zijn. Wil het biobased HBO onderzoek, met zijn eigen thematiek en aanpak een goede positie in de kennisinfrastructuur krijgen en houden, dan is het noodzakelijk de krachten te bundelen. De oprichtende lectoren van het Platform Biobased Economy willen via het kennisplatform biobased economy hier graag actief aan bijdragen. Het hoofddoel van het Lectorenplatform Biobased Economy is gericht op agenderen. Vanuit het Platform willen de lectoren de komende twee jaar mede vormgeven aan de onderzoeksagenda’s van SIA, de Nationale Wetenschapsagenda, de kennisagenda van het Ministerie van Economische Zaken om het thema Biobased Economy sterker te verankeren en de transitie naar een Biobased Economy te versnellen. Onder andere door het leveren van informatie en inzichten, door signalen op te halen uit het kennis- en het beroepenveld (met name MKB). Afgeleide doelen: 1. Het Platform zal een aanspreekpunt zijn voor HBO-onderzoek voor de topsectoren (TKI BBE, TS Chemie, Energie en Agro&Food) en haar intermediairs (Chemielink, Innovatielink) en op die manier de onderzoekspijler binnen het Landelijk Kennisnetwerk vormgeven. 2. Het nationale platform zal een rol spelen in de afstemming tussen diverse thematische en regionale agenda’s binnen de Biobased Economy, en de onderlinge samenhang verwoorden, bewaken en uitdragen. 3. Het Platform zal een rol spelen in het verwoorden van de HBO aanpak en het HBO belang in diverse beleids-, onderzoeks- en innovatiegremia. 4. Het Platform zal een rol spelen in het belang van de Biobased Economy binnen de circulaire economie
Het Lectorenplatform Biobased Economy heeft in de afgelopen twee jaar gewerkt aan een onderzoeksagenda in vier hoofdstukken: ingrediënten/inhoudstoffen, materialen, energie/nutriënten en maatschappij. Op basis van deze agenda zijn verschillende samenwerkingen geïnitieerd en gerealiseerd, zoals GoChem, enkele NWA projecten, de Learning Community Biofuels en de samenwerking met het Lectorenplatform Circulaire Economie op maatschappelijke thema’s. Er is dus al veel gerealiseerd in samenwerking en programmering. Niettemin staan er, terugkijkend, nog enkele ambities uit de eerste twee jaar overeind: het toetsen van de thema’s in meetings met bedrijven; het ontwikkelen van (meer) gezamenlijke onderzoeksprojecten; het ontwikkelen en bestendigen van een meerjarig omvattend (NWO-achtig) programma. Voor dit laatste is GoChem een goede start, maar het zou de komende twee jaar verder moeten groeien, bijvoorbeeld in een biobased SPRONG programma. Daarnaast blijven we werken aan de herkenbaarheid en vindbaarheid van het biobased onderzoek, de lectoraten en de agenda. We breiden de ambities uit naar publieke bekendheid van biobased economy in het algemeen. Verder willen we de mogelijkheid van een eigen publicatiereeks onderzoeken. Nieuw voor de komende jaren is de ambitie om onderzoekskwaliteit beter meetbaar te maken. Hoe meet je kwaliteit in praktijkonderzoek: impact is een ander doel dan wetenschappelijke publicaties. In de eerste termijn van het Lectorenplatform BBE was er additioneel en geoormerkt budget voor internationale samenwerking binnen Living Lab Biobased Brazil (LLBB). Dit budget was gekoppeld aan een gecombineerde Braziliaans/Nederlandse onderzoekscall. Dat is in de komende twee jaar niet voorzien.
The objective of Sustainable Solid Biofuel project is to contribute to a zero-waste and low-carbon emission production of charcoal by evaluating the feasibility and energy efficiency of three different conversion technologies. According to the IEA’s World Energy Outlook 2015 3 billion (more than a third of the global population) use solid biomass as wood, charcoal, or animal waste for cooking and heating1. Charcoal is one of the most widely used of the solid biofuels. In current charcoal production processes the gas stream from pyrolysis are mostly directly released to the environment which wastes energy and causes serious environmental pollution. However, the production of charcoal can be improved to be practiced on a sustainable basis by careful selection of wood or alternative biomass source as wood waste or agricultural residues and further focusing on harvesting strategy and production techniques. In the conversion process it is necessary to increase the energy efficiency while reducing emissions. Further sustainability can be increased by processing the smoke that is exhausted from the kiln, that correspond to roughly one third of the whole biomass. Within the volatile components in the smoke there are chemicals which can be used, for example, as industrial cleaners or wood preservatives and thus one of the environmental drawbacks of charcoal production can be eliminated and turned into another product input. Brazil is the world's largest charcoal producer2 consequently the state of the art of the recearch in this field can be found in Brazil. In this Sustainable Solid Biofuels project one of the leading universities of Brazil, the Universidade Federal de Viçosa (UFV) is joining forces with Avans University of Applied Sciences and two Dutch SMEs Privium B.V. and Charcotec B.V. to carry out the evaluation of the improvements that can be achieved in the energy efficiency.
