Bio-based aromatic chemicals from wood biomass components

Biorefineries target the optimised use of renewable feedstocks to a family of end products including bio-based chemicals. The forest biomass consists of different types of chemical components; cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin and extractives. The bulk of chemicals on the market today are produced from fossil feedstocks. With depleting fossil resources, it is vital to either discover processes for producing these chemicals from biomass, or alternative chemical products able to act as replacements. Targeting chemical processes and products where the use of the natural functionality of biomass is optimised leads to chemical processes with high atom-economy and good mass balances. The production of aromatic chemicals from biomass gives a good example. There are examples where heteroaromatic furan derivatives can act as replacements for currently used fossil sourced BTX (benzene, toluene, xylene) derivatives. The largest biomass reserve, carbohydrates, is better suited for the production of furan derivatives than BTX derivatives due to the chemical functionalities present in carbohydrates. On the other hand, Kraft pulping process by-product crude sulphate turpentine is well suited for producing BTX derivatives with high atom-economy. These two lines of research are examples of the current research activities of the corresponding author.