From atoms to plant: co-production of green transport fuel and levoglucosan from waste biomass

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Converting biomass waste to bio-products will simultaneously provide a route to waste-disposal, and a process for the production of useful, economically attractive products. Within all the products derived from biomass waste, liquid hydrocarbon transport fuels are promising for the UK to meet its 2020 renewable energy target of providing 10% of its transport fuel from renewable sources. They will help to tackle the challenges of climate change and the ever-increasing fuel demand.The current waste-to-liquid technologies, however, are facing main problems of high production cost and technical uncertainty. To address these problems, we will develop a breakthrough technology in this project. This novel technology will co-produce liquid transport bio-fuel and one value-added bio-chemical. By doing this, high economic profits will be expected when comparing with conventional liquid bio-fuel plants. The co-production system will additionally benefit to the reduction of the biofuel's high oxygen content, which is known as the main source that leads to poor stability, immiscibility and low calorific value of the produced fuel.The integrated production system will be designed and evaluated within this project, with the involvement of three universities (Queen's University Belfast-QUB, Aston University-AU, and North China Electric Power University-NCEPU), three academics, one PDRA, and two PhDs (one is funded by QUB, the other is funded by NCEPU). The project is also highly industrial geared by directly involvement of two UK-based companies: Hirwaun Energy Ltd, who will provide a pilot scale biomass pyrolysis reactor for results validation, and Green Lizard Technologies Ltd, who will provide suggestions on the technology scale-up.Through the development of this innovative technology, high national impact will be realised to achieve the UK's 2020 Renewable Energy targets through the conversion of over 16 million tonnes per year of the UK's lignocellulosic biomass into advanced fuel together with value-added co-products. It will also have a positive impact on the UK's target of reducing carbon dioxide emissions and increasing the use of renewable materials.