Workshop: Symposium on Thermal Deconstruction of Biomass

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This award is to support a one-day mini-symposium on November 1, 2017, which will be held in conjunction with the AIChE Annual Meeting in Minneapolis, MN. The objective of this mini-symposium is to create a unique environment to allow the interactions of prominent researchers who work in the field of thermal deconstruction of biomass materials for producing novel biorenewable fuels. This mini-symposium will feature three sessions of invited speakers and a poster reception, featuring relevant research of graduate students. The three oral sessions, each consisting of talks by five invited speakers are: 1) Pathways to thermal deconstruction, 2) Fundamentals of thermal deconstruction, and 3) Upgrading products from thermal deconstruction. The funding will partially support the participation of the fifteen invited speakers and the young scientists presenting at the poster reception.Thermal deconstruction is an intriguing new approach to fractionating lignocellulose biomass into components suitable for upgrading into biobased products. The use of heat to fractionate and depolymerize plant biopolymers into solubilized carbohydrate and lignin-derived phenolic monomers has often been overlooked or even dismissed in the field of biofuels and biobased products. Its practitioners often self-segregate because they fail to recognize commonalities among the phenomena they study. Even less common are interactions and collaborations among those who thermally deconstruct biomass and those who depend upon deconstructed biomass as substrates for bioprocessing. To date, there has been no forum to bring together researchers who are pioneering thermal deconstruction as well as those who seek new sources of bioprocessing substrates. This mini-symposium will provide an excellent opportunity to bring experts together to address this important research field, which will have a significant impact on the development of the renewable energy technology.