ABSTRACT
Many biochemical and thermochemical processes have been developed in the past to produce valuable platform chemicals, intermediate products and transportation fuels from biomass. Three different thermochemical conversion processes can be described based on the reaction conditions especially related to oxygen utilization. They are namely combustion, gasification and pyrolysis. Microwave mediated pyrolysis technology and research and development is more advanced than other microwave applications in biofuel production. Pyrolysis converts a raw material into different reactive intermediate products: solid, liquid and gaseous products. The chapter presents a summary of microwave-assisted thermochemical conversion of lignocellulosic materials into valuable chemical and fuel products. The concerns feedstock physicochemical characteristics include the energy consumption for preparation of feedstock and understanding the degradation behavior during microwave heating. The bio-oil costs are significantly influenced by the feedstock costs similar to other biofuel production. Economics of bio-oil production through conventional processes were studied by many researchers.
