Chapter 272 – Chemicals and Polymers from Biomass

Publisher Summary This chapter describes chemicals and polymers from biomass. The use of agricultural and forest products as industrial raw materials is not a novel concept. Products include paper-pulp, woven fibers, cord, building materials, liquid fuels, bulk chemicals, fine chemicals, flavors, fragrances, and pharmaceutical intermediates. Processes are more sophisticated in the industrialized countries, but greater reliance is placed on such products in the less developed economies. Take-up reflects the relative cost of these materials and products in competition with other raw materials available in a given market place. Industry in general can obtain the raw materials required, and may move between renewable and fossil sources depending on the price and availability, which in turn reflects local geographic and climatic conditions as well as market demand. Within this situation, increasing pressures have evolved in the developed economies with the objective of increasing the ratio of products derived from natural raw materials to those derived from fossil fuels. These pressures arise from the need to find increased outlets for the surpluses from ever more productive agricultural systems that have evolved, decreasing the trend to take land out of production resulting in dwindling populations of farmers, foresters, and other rural workers. To create new opportunities large sums of money have been spent, both by public and private sectors, in research and development. This chapter reviews the RTD activities that have been carried out in Europe since the late 1980s and shows to what extent the beneficial results have been achieved.