Heterogeneous Catalytic Gasification of Biomass to Biofuels and Bioproducts: A Review

Biomass gasification is one of the most viable approaches for exploiting biomass. It systemically employs several agents in stimulating the desired reactions that lead to the conversion of biomass feed stocks to fuels/other products. Owing to the biodiversity of the products of biomass gasification, they are fast becoming substitutes for fossil-based products/fuels. In order to ensure optimal production of potential bioproducts, the process conditions of a gasification process have to be essentially controlled within the ambience of high throughput. Based on existing literature, biomass gasification to fuels is not essentially new; however, till date, none of the existing works seeks to unveil the role of heterogeneous catalysis in biomass gasification toward ensuring high bioproducts yield. Heterogeneous catalysis seems to play a crucial role in biomass gasification owing to the fact that catalyst involvement in gasification processes helps to lower the activation energy of specific reactions; hence, under thermal influence, the catalysts tend to hasten such reactions for the desired conversions. Furthermore, it is also pertinent to take into consideration viable approaches for extending or maintaining the service life of the catalyst employed by deploying apt modalities that abate catalyst poisoning (aging, deactivation and fouling); this paper seeks to cover such challenges.