Fuels and Chemicals from Thermal Conversion of Renewable Carbon Sources
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Chemical Engineering and Technology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (10 February 2024) | Viewed by 1386
Special Issue Editors
2. Department of Bioresource and Environmental Security, Sandia National Laboratories, 7011 East Avenue, Livermore, CA 94551, USA
Interests: chemistry; sustainable aviation and marine fuels; catalytic lignin depolymerization; thermochemical conversion; heterogeneous catalysis; templated nanomaterials synthesis
Interests: waste biomass valorization; thermo-chemical conversion; solar-assisted pyrolysis; biochar for soil application and environmental management
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Renewable carbon includes all carbon sources that avoid or replace the use of fossil carbons, which are exemplified in natural gas, petroleum and coal. We must consider three sources of renewable carbon: biomass, recycled plastics and materials, or carbon dioxide (CO2) from air and exhaust gases. Fuels and chemicals can be continuously produced from these renewable carbon sources, especially via thermal and catalytic conversion methods. These technologies have therefore gained great traction in recent years as concerns about climate change and the need for sustainable energy sources have grown.
Common thermal conversion techniques include hydrothermal liquefaction, slow and fast pyrolysis, gasification. With the advancement of these technologies, the primary interest has shifted from pure process control (e.g., reactor design, control heating rate, etc.) to product interpretation (more sophisticated instruments) and the tweaking of the selectivity in order to gain a wide range of valuable chemicals (over catalyst with different functionalities). Today, an ever greater number of works in thermal conversion fields contain or are combined with catalytic conversion approaches.
More recently, another two renewable carbon sources have received a great deal of attention for their capacity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and achieve the carbon-negative goal. These include the reuse of the recycled plastics, which has both environmental and economic benefits and the CO2 capture from air and exhaust gases. Either carbon source can be utilized and converted into fuels and chemicals via the existing thermal conversion, especially when accompanied with catalytic approaches.
In this context, the new Special Issue of Sustainability, entitled “Fuels and Chemicals from Thermal Conversion of Renewable Carbon Sources”, will cover a variety of topics in order to advance research into thermal conversion technologies. These include, but are not limited to which include, the following areas:
(1) Biomass thermochemical conversion
(2) Renewable hydrogen production from biomass gasification
(3) Catalytic conversion of biomass and/or recycled plastics
(4) CO2 capture technologies
(5) Approach and tools for analyzing various bio-oils
(6) Lignin-related approach
(7) Catalysis design for depolymerization of lignin or recycled plastics
(8) Solvolysis of biomass or plastics
(9) Carbonization technologies for hydrogen storage
(10) Biochar and energized pellets production
(11) Fuel properties characterization
(12) Techno-economic analysis on the thermal conversion processes
(13) Perspective and review on thermal and catalytic conversion
We look forward to receiving your contributions.
Dr. Yinglei Han
Prof. Dr. Rupam Kataki
Dr. Sohrab Haghighi Mood
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- thermal conversion
- biomass conversion
- CO2 capture
- plastic depolymerization
- catalytic hydroprocessing
- techno-economic analysis
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