Renewable Butanol Production via Catalytic Routes

Heeyoung Choi, Jeehoon Han and Jechan Lee
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Heeyoung Choi: Department of Environmental and Safety Engineering, Ajou University, Suwon 16499, Korea
Jeehoon Han: School of Semiconductor and Chemical Engineering & School of Chemical Engineering, Jeonbuk National University, Jeonju 54896, Korea
Jechan Lee: Department of Environmental and Safety Engineering, Ajou University, Suwon 16499, Korea

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 22, 1-14

Abstract: Fluctuating crude oil price and global environmental problems such as global warming and climate change lead to growing demand for the production of renewable chemicals as petrochemical substitutes. Butanol is a nonpolar alcohol that is used in a large variety of consumer products and as an important industrial intermediate. Thus, the production of butanol from renewable resources (e.g., biomass and organic waste) has gained a great deal of attention from researchers. Although typical renewable butanol is produced via a fermentative route (i.e., acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) fermentation of biomass-derived sugars), the fermentative butanol production has disadvantages such as a low yield of butanol and the formation of byproducts, such as acetone and ethanol. To avoid the drawbacks, the production of renewable butanol via non-fermentative catalytic routes has been recently proposed. This review is aimed at providing an overview on three different emerging and promising catalytic routes from biomass/organic waste-derived chemicals to butanol. The first route involves the conversion of ethanol into butanol over metal and oxide catalysts. Volatile fatty acid can be a raw chemical for the production of butanol using porous materials and metal catalysts. In addition, biomass-derived syngas can be transformed to butanol on non-noble metal catalysts promoted by alkali metals. The prospect of catalytic renewable butanol production is also discussed.

Keywords: biomass; butanol; catalysis; organic waste; renewable chemical; sustainable chemistry (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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