Biofuels Production from Biomass by Thermochemical Conversion Technologies

Table 1

Advantages of thermochemical conversion of biomass over biological/biochemical process.

Thermochemical	Biological/biochemical
(1) Effectively applied to almost any biomass feedstock	Involves the use of microbes, enzymes, and/or chemicals to utilize the limited range of biomass
(2) Relatively higher productivity (production per unit time) due to completely chemical nature of reaction	Productivity is limited due to biological conversion. Increase would require higher capital investment such as bigger reactor
(3) Multiple high-value products possible using fractional separation of products	Normally, limited to one or few products and would require additional microbial culture, enzymes for more products
(4) Independent of climate conditions, operates at much higher temperature range, therefore, effect of ambient temperature will be minimal	Mostly susceptible to ambient temperature, and so forth such as anaerobic digester, sunlight for algal ponds
(5) Mostly complete utilization of the waste/biomass	Production of secondary wastes such as biomass sludge