Production of furfural and its application in biorefinery

Abstract

In this new energy economy era, the importance of renewable energy resource needs to be highly addressed, as the demand of energy dramatically increases and fossil fuel is being exhausted. Lignocellulosic biomass is considered as the sustainable and renewable feedstock to produce biochemicals and biofuels that are the alternative for petroleum derived products. Furfural is a natural precursor for the range of furan based chemicals and solvents such as methylfuran, tetrahydrofuran, methyltetrahy-drofuran, ethyltetrahydrofuryl ether, ethyl levulinate, levulinic acid, and alkanes. Thus, furfural should be a renewable platform chemical for biochemicals and renewable biofuels. In this paper, the concept of biorefinery, furfural production and its applications are briefly reviewed.