The Catalyst Review November 2024 - 8

SPECIAL FEATURE
carbon - originating from residues of the forest-based industries and a smaller amount of 24 Mt
of carbon originating from agricultural residues such as straw and corn stover that are not left
on the fields or used in other agricultural practices (e.g., livestock feed). Although there is a slight
imbalance as shown in Figure 2, these numbers suggest that it is not unthinkable to use part
of that lignocellulose biomass for chemicals and SAFs, in addition to other available renewable
carbon sources (e.g., fatty acids, sugars, recyclates). In other words, the supply and demand can
be balanced without it necessarily leading to overexploitation.
Thus, a growing demand for lignocellulosic feedstock is foreseeable, but it is important to realize
that some applications are legally limited to certain types of biomass (e.g. only a defined list of
lignocellulosic biomass sidestreams is allowed under the EU Renewable Energy Directive for
usage in SAFs). Therefore, developing feedstock-flexible processes (e.g. reactor design, kinetics,
product composition, catalyst poisons, etc.) will become increasingly pivotal, as you can no longer
rely on a yearlong supply of feedstock with constant quality and composition.
Process Development: " Innovation Happens Where Different Perspectives Meet "
Equally important to the amount of available biomass is the efficiency of its utilization. An obvious
ambition must be to maximize the product yields from all fractions present in lignocellulosic
biomass. This means not only the cellulose fibers, but also the aromatic molecules present
in lignin. This is where the biggest challenge lies. Today, in the pulping industry, the lignin is
extracted from the wood matrix under severe acid or alkaline conditions, resulting in a degraded
polymeric lignin that has proven to be a very difficult intermediate for chemical applications.
Hence, today more than 98% of it is still being burnt on site for energy.
With Biocon we found a way to utilize both cellulose and lignin for chemical applications.
The process was invented at the KU Leuven Center for Sustainably Catalysis and Engineering
(CSCE), headed by prof. Bert Sels, and can be situated at the intersection between the traditional
pulping industry and the chemical industry, as illustrated in Figure 3. More specifically, we apply
commercial heterogeneous hydrogenation catalysts to lignocellulosic feedstocks. The catalysts'
Figure 3 Positioning Reductive Catalytic Biorefining at the intersection of traditional bio-refining and petro-refining, resulting in the
production of two main intermediates: lignin oil and carbohydrate pulp. Source: Biocon
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The Catalyst Review
November 2024

The Catalyst Review November 2024

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