Thermochemical processes for biofuels production from biomass

Abstract

The contribution of biomass to the world’s energy supply is presently estimated to be around 10% to 14%. The conversion of biomass to biofuels can be achieved primarily via biochemical and thermochemical processes. Recently, the use of thermochemical processes as pyrolysis and gasification has received great attention. The biomass composition and form of process conduction can affect greatly the efficiency of conversion for both gasification and pyrolysis. This review compiles recent thermochemical studies using several kinds of biomass to obtain biofuels and, additionally, it presents a brief description of main gasification and pyrolysis processes employed. Publications in Patent database also were reported and compiled.