Biomass-derived carbon-based catalysts for lignocellulosic biomass and waste valorisation: a circular approach

The growing demand for alternative clean energy sources and environmental crises are causing great concern for humankind. Researchers have devoted effort to finding cheap, eco-friendly, and robust functional materials for future development of the biorefinery process. Among biomass valorisation processes, gasification and pyrolysis are the most explored thermal treatments exploiting biomass-derived catalysts, especially for H2 and bio-oil production, which possess great potential in the energetical framework proposed by the European Green Deal. While biomass conversion provides intriguing insights, its industrial development has been limited to date. The economic and environmental sustainability of biomass-derived catalyst production is pivotal for reducing pollutant emissions. However, scientists face a bottleneck in synthesizing materials with a high surface area, strong functionalization, and cost-effectiveness to compete with fossil resources. To address this challenge, life cycle assessment emerges as a valuable tool to study process sustainability. This assessment can be coupled with artificial intelligence technologies to predict the properties of biomass-derived catalysts accurately, facilitating comprehensive sustainability analyses. Within a circular approach, cost-effective, tailored and robust biomass-derived catalysts to convert biomass play a key role in biorefinery developments.