Catalytic Conversion and Utilization of Biomass

Dear Colleagues,

The chemicals, energies and materials associated with lignocellulosic biomass are renewable and sustainable, and have the potential to replace fossil feedstocks. Biorefinery, the process of fractionating lignocellulose into the three major components, is considered one of the most promising strategies for the use of bioenergy, biomaterials and biochemicals. Until now, due to its complex hierarchy and chemical structures, only 2% of lignocellulose is valorized into value-added products, and most of them are burned or discarded, even though biomass is the most renewable resource on earth. Therefore, there is a need to exploit the technology that can interpret in depth the heterogeneous structure of lignocellulose and develop a process that can efficiently fractionate lignocellulose into cellulose, hemicelluloses and lignin, as well as develop the technology that can convert the lignocellulose into high-value chemical products and high-performance functional materials in a sustainable and promising way.

The complex compositional structure of lignocellulosic biomass and biomass recalcitrance severely inhibits their effective conversion and selective production of high-value products. Therefore, before utilizing lignocellulose, we must comprehensively understand its heterogeneous structure by advanced characterization, such as through NMR, which will guide the further fractionation of lignocellulose by efficiently breaking the biomass recalcitrance. After obtaining the high-purity components, lignin, cellulose and hemicelluloses, techniques should be developed to transform them into chemicals, materials or fuel. In addition, the catalytic fractionation strategy is a promising strategy for the separation of derivatives of a certain component from the reaction mixture and the utilization of the residual solid during catalytic fractionation. The ultimate goal of biomass utilization is to produce biofuels and biomaterials in industrial production that are cost- and performance-competitive with petroleum-derived equivalents.

Original research articles and review articles focusing on the characterization, fractionation and conversion of lignocellulose, as well as the applications of lignocellulosic materials, are welcome. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following areas:

• Chemocatalytic depolymerization of biomass;
• Upgrading of biomass and lignin to fuels and chemicals;
• Novel and high-efficiency biomass fractionation methods for improving lignin quality and promoting the enzyme hydrolysis of cellulose;
• Structural elucidation of native and fractionated biomass, such as cellulose, hemicelluloses and lignin;
• Lignocellulose-based materials;
• Process simulation of integrated biorefinery and techno-economic analysis;
• Bioenergy and biomass biorefinery results from pilot, demonstration and industrial plants.

We look forward to receiving your contributions. 

Dr. Xiaojun Shen
Dr. Chao Xie
Guest Editors

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• lignocellulose
• fractionation
• catalytic conversion
• value-added utilization