Renewable Platform Chemicals from Biomass: Pathways, Technologies and Challenges

Abstract

The production of renewable chemicals and plastics has been extensively investigated in recent decades, with the purpose of reducing the global dependence on fossil resources. In this review, the main routes to produce chemicals from biomass are reviewed and a critical discussion on the prospects and techno-economic viability of these technologies is presented. As these topics are often considered as independent from each other, the aim of this work is to provide an unified and interdisciplinary perspective of main possible production routes and their development status for experts and non-experts. The main processes of biomass concentration were reviewed and two main approaches for obtaining renewable chemicals were considered: (i) the production of compounds chemically identical to petroleum derivatives, and (ii) the production of conventional and new oxygenated chemicals. The literature shows that there are sustainable technological alternatives to the substitution of many petroleum derived chemicals, but the complexity of the production processes should not be simplistically evaluated. Solutions and technologies must be carefully evaluated, both from the point of view of their technoeconomic viability and their sustainability.