Thermochemical conversion of sugar industry by-products to biofuels

Thibault Nicodème, Thomas Berchem, Nicolas Jacquet and Aurore Richel

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2018, vol. 88, issue C, 151-159

Abstract: Replacement of petroleum by other energy sources is one of the principal challenges of contemporary engineering. One of the most promising substitutes for petroleum is biomass, chemically converted into fuel. For instance, as the world's biggest producer of sugarcane, Brazil generates large quantities of agricultural residues from sugarcane cultivation which could be used to produce biofuels for transportation and aviation (i.e. jet fuel) without much difficulty. Furthermore, sugar beet industry generates important amount of waste that could be valorized into biofuels. The purpose of this article is to review the different technologies currently available for the production of biofuels via a thermochemical pathway using sugarcane bagasse and sugar beet pulp as feedstock, with specific interest in using feedstock gasification and subsequent conversion of the synthetic gas into fuel. Gasification is a longstanding process of conversion of carbonaceous material into a gaseous compound (syngas) and a solid output, called char. Several kinds of gasifiers are described, as well as the syngas cleaning-up process, and the characteristics of several processes through which syngas is converted into synthetic fuel are detailed, including Fischer-Tropsch (FT), Methanol-to-gasoline (MTG), Methanol-to-olefins (MTO) as well as pyrolysis.

Keywords: Sugarcane bagasse; Sugar beet pulp; Biofuel; Fischer-Tropsch; Gasification; Thermochemical pathway (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032118300637
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:rensus:v:88:y:2018:i:c:p:151-159

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/600126/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 600126/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2018.02.037

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews is currently edited by L. Kazmerski

More articles in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().