ABSTRACT
Modern society is profoundly dependent on fossil feed stocks to produce multiple products, such as transportation fuels, fine chemicals, pharmaceuticals, detergents, synthetic fibers, plastics, fertilizers, lubricants, solvents, waxes, etc., as well as heat and power (Demirbas, 2006). The fossil resources are not endless. Their price is increasing continuously due to increasing scarcity, and not regarded as sustainable from an environmental point of view (Kamm, 2006). A versatile resource, especially in terms of producing carbon-based products, to replace fossil feedstocks is biomass (Vlachos, 2010) or other sources originating form biomass, such as black liquor (BL). Conversion of biomass to other products can be performed either by biochemical or thermochemical processes. In the case of large-scale production of, for example, carbon-based products, thermo-chemical conversion is considered more efficient compared to biochemical processes (Zhang, 2010). Techniques for thermo-chemical conversion can be divided into pyrolysis, gasification, combustion and liquefaction. Among these techniques, gasification is a versatile platform for production of multiple products, as illustrated in Figure 6.1.
