Can the chemical industry usher in a new era? "From oil to wood"

Plastics, cleaners, and building materials are often made from petroleum-derived compounds rather than renewable materials. Currently using oil as a raw material is much cheaper.

However, this situation should not continue.

Researchers have previously published articles on how to convert wood into chemicals that can be used in a variety of products. At present, the overall road map for this process has been completed. The calculations also show that it is financially feasible to build and operate a biorefinery that converts wood into chemical building blocks.

In order to extract chemicals from wood, a chemical reactor is required to separate the wood into solid pulp and liquid lignin oil. Pulp can be used to produce second-generation biofuels or natural insulation products, while lignin oil can be further processed like petroleum into chemical feedstocks such as phenol and propylene. Lignin can also be used to obtain alternative building blocks for plastics. Lignin-based compounds are less harmful to the human body than compounds made from petroleum.

Professor Bert Sels, Department of Microbiology and Molecular Systems, University of Leuven, Belgium; "In the paper industry, lignin is regarded as a residual product. If lignin can be properly separated from wood and the correct chemical building blocks are obtained, it can be used in many high-quality products. Therefore, wood can replace oil in the chemical industry," he said.

The publication of this paper is an important milestone for the team's long-term research. "What's special about this study is that we calculated the economic feasibility of switching from oil to wood," Burt Sells said." To create a realistic scenario, the researchers worked with a Belgian-Japanese joint venture ink company. This is because some of the compounds in lignin can be used to make inks.

Calculations show that a chemical plant using wood as a raw material will be profitable in a few years.

With smart forest management, wood can be harvested sustainably. "In addition, there is currently a surplus of wood in Europe due to the shrinking of the paper industry. Researchers are also working with waste handlers and landscape managers to make use of pruning and other waste wood. The environmental costs of using wood will be lower than using oil because the compounds made from wood produce less carbon dioxide emissions," Sells said.

To demonstrate the application of its research, the team will now expand the manufacturing process.

Phase I testing has begun. The researchers hope to build a wood biorefinery in Belgium. At the same time, they are in talks with several partners who can process pulp and lignin oil into various products.

As a result, the chemical industry emits large amounts of carbon dioxide worldwide, and significant changes are needed to achieve carbon-neutral chemistry, and this study is one of the pioneers of these changes.