"Newswise - AMHERST, Mass. - Chemical engineers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, using a catalytic fast pyrolysis process that transforms renewable non-food biomass into petrochemicals, have developed a new catalyst that boosts the yield for five key "building blocks of the chemical industry" by 40 percent compared to previous methods. This sustainable production process, which holds the promise of being competitive and compatible with the current petroleum refinery infrastructure, has been tested and proven in a laboratory reactor, using wood as the feedstock, the research team says.
"We think that today we can be economically competitive with crude oil production," says research team leader George Huber, an associate professor of chemical engineering at UMass Amherst and one of the country's leading experts on catalytic pyrolysis."
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A lot of people, when discussing energy independence from oil, site the problems not of fuel but the petrochemicals, the building blocks of plastics, resins, fibers, elastomers, lubricants, synthetic rubber, gels and other industrial chemicals. Aromatics are used for making dyes, polyurethanes, plastics, synthetic fibers and more..Now that it has been demonstrated that these chemicals can be produced from biomass, in an economically competitive way, do you think the last stumbling block has been cleared, for large scale sustainable energy production?
Petrochemical Output From Biomass Boosted by 40%
Re: Petrochemical output from biomass boosted by 40%
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