Biomass to Chemicals

Agriculture Waste
Economic part of agricultural activity is the yield and the less
important part of it is used to be called agriculture waste
Agricultural waste in developing countries is about 35 percent of
agricultural crop products annually and could be a potential
source for 25 percent global energy requirements (Bayat, 2003)
India produces around 210 million tonnes of food grains and
almost 130 million tonnes of fruits and vegetables. Wastage in
India, from the farm to fork, is estimated to be very high in all
types of food.
Hence value additions to the wastes and by-products are very
good option to enhance the contribution of the sector in Indian
economy
Agriculture waste based lignocellulose is cheapest and most
abundant renewable resource and sustainable solution for raw

Biomass and Its sources

Environmental Relevance

Leaking and improper storage of agricultural waste can also

pose a serious threat to the environment
In addition, farming activities can give rise to emissions of
ammonia and methane which can cause acidification and
contribute to greenhouse gases emissions
There are a number of potential environmental impacts
associated with agricultural waste, if it is not properly managed

Biomass and Its Utilization

Agro waste based biomass resources : Rice husk, Rice straw, wheat
straw, Maize Straw, Sugar cane waste, animal waste and many more
Agriculture waste based biomass contain mainly non-edible
lignocellulose (cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin biomass) component
Biosynthesis of agriculture based bioproducts such as biofuels and
biochemical
Waste based economy will reduce costs through improved
production efficiencies
Cleaner agriculture bio products and bioprocesses for the production
of material wealth

Biomass to Energy
The biomass can be:
Burned
Transformed into a fuel gas through partial combustion
Into biogas through fermentation
Into bio alcohol through biochemical processes
Into biodiesel
Into a bio-oil or into a syngas from which chemicals and fuels can
be synthesized
Bio ethanol production from either sugarcane bagasse or corn stalk

Biomass to Energy
Biomass is the most common form of carbonaceous materials, widely
used in the main research and development for energy and valuable
chemicals production, involves following activities:
Biomass combustion
Thermal gasification
Pyrolysis
Biotechnology for fermentation processes
Anaerobic digestion of agricultural wastes
Straw utilization
Environmental systems

Biomass Conversion

Agriculture Waste Biomass Conversion

Biological processes for
the conversion of wastes to
fuels
include
ethanol
fermentation by yeast or
bacteria, and methane
production by microbial
culture
in
anaerobic
conditions,
biocatalytic
methods for the conversion
of starch, corn co products,
beet sugar, or cane sugar
bagasse to value-added
oligosaccharides
and
biochemical conversion of
lignocelluloses substrates
to cellulose, liquid glucose,
and value added chemicals

Agriculture Waste Biomass Conversion

Possible routes to obtain chemicals from sugar cane bagasse

(Nossin et al., 2002)

Process of Biomass Conversion

Current technologies involve following four major routes for nonedible
lignocellulose conversion to valuable chemicals (Simonetti and
Dumesic, 2008)

Gasification
The gasication process involves:
Requires high temperatures more than 1100 K
Necessary for the endothermic formation of synthesis gas (Lange,
2007) a valuable mixture of CO and H2
Co-feeding an oxidizing agent such as oxygen, air, stream in the
gasier which causes partial combustion of the biomass
Can be used to process all the three component of lignocellulosic
biomass
The synthesis gas obtained can be used to produce methanol

Pyrolysis/liquefacti
on

Pyrolysis and liquefaction involve:

The thermal decomposition of agriculture waste biomass under

an inert atmosphere at lower temperatures 573K973 K
Convert biomass to a dark organic liquid, commonly known as
bio-oil
Consists of a complex mixture of more than 300 highly
oxygenated compounds, polymeric carbohydrates, lignin
fragments and a water content of typically 25 wt%
Bio-oils are good sources of chemicals
High oxygen content of the molecules present in bio-oils confers
this liquid with low energy content
Requires further deoxygenation, which typically involves
consumption of an external supply of H2
Can be used as a transportation fuels

Hydrolys
is
Acid and enzymatic hydrolysis is effective for separating the
carbohydrate and lignin fractions of lignocellulosic feeds at lower
temperatures
The complex structure of lignocellulose, with its highly crystalline,
lowsurface area cellulose protected by lignin, confers this material
with a high degree of recalcitrance, which makes its depolymerization
into the corresponding monomer sugars a difcult task
Effective pretreatment step must be employed to break the lignin
protection so that the acids or enzymes can more easily access and
hydrolyze the cellulose and hemicellulose fractions of the biomass
The lignin network is modied in aqueous solutions at mild
temperatures, which allows the hydrolysis of hemicellulose to occur
under the same conditions in the presence of acids
Pretreatment methodologies involving physical, chemical and
biological treatments have been developed to depolymerize
lignocellulosic materials

Bioconversion

Biological processes for the conversion of agriculture wastes to

fuels include ethanol fermentation
By help of Microorganism like yeast or bacteria
Methane production by microbial consortia under anaerobic
conditions
Referred to as the enzyme-mediated conversion of organic
substrates, such as cellulose, to other more valuable substances,
such as protein
Bacterial decomposition of organic waste
methanol

to produce ethanol,

Technology based classification of biofuels and biochemicals

Biomass based fuels and chemical categorized in three main

category (Frost, 2005)
First generation biofuels and bio based chemicals
Integrated bio refinery technology
Custom designed biofuels

Chemicals Produced from Agro-waste : Few example

Chemicals

Agriculture
waste
resourse

Applications

Referenc
es

Ferulic acid

Wheat bran

Antioxidant,antimicrobial, antiinflammatory, antithrombosis,

anti-cancer and antibiotic

Sarangi and
Sahoo, 2010

Vanillin

Wheat straw, Rice straw,

Rice bran oil, Sugar beet
pulp, Wheat bran

Flavor for food, perfume,

drink and pharmaceuticals
industries

Herrmann et al.,
2000
Zheng et al.,
2007
Apiwatanapiwat
and
Vaithanomsat,
2009
Thibault et al.,
1998

Acrylic acid

Sugar cane baggase

Used in manufacture of
various plastic
coatings,adhesives elastomers
,floor polishes, and paints

Lunelli et al.,
2007

Lignin

Rye straw

For synthesis of Gallic acid,

Protocatechuic acid,
p-Hydroxybenzoic acid,
p-Hydroxybenzaldehyde,
Vanillic acid, Syringic acid,
Vanillin, Syringaldehyde

Sun and Cheng ,

2002

Challanges
conversion of agriculture waste biomass and biomass-derived
compounds into fuels and chemicals addresses many of the
current issues like sustainability and renewable resources
biological processes for the production of fuels and chemical
have been well established, but these processes must still be
integrated into a system capable of meeting basic requirements
for overall efficiency of converting solar energy into biofuels and
biochemicals. So a model system must at least in principle, be
capable of easy scale-up and not be limited by either engineering
or economic factors
To accelerate the partial replacement of fossil fuels,
technologies for the production of valuable chemicals and energy
from renewable biomass resources should be economically
competitive with petrochemical industry in terms of complexity of
processes employed to convert biomass to fuels and chemicals

References
Bayat F (2003) Effective factors in agricultural losses, and ways to
combat it. Paper presented in the first conference in prevention methods
of natural resources, 19-21 Jan. Farhangestan Olom, Tehran. (In Farsi)
Frost J (2005) Redefining chemical manufacture replacing petroluem
with plant-derived feedstocks. Industrial Biotechnology 60:23-24
Lange JP (2007) Lignocellulose conversion: an introduction to chemistry,
process and economics. Biofuels Bioproducts Biorefining 1:3948
Nossin, P, Joosten J, Bruggink A (2002), Future feedstocks for
commodity advancement:
An Overview.
Bioresource Technology
16:2354-2366
Simonetti DA, Dumesic JA (2008) Catalytic strategies for changing the
energy content and achieving CC coupling in biomass-derived
oxygenated hydrocarbons. ChemSusChem 1:725733