ST2-01: A roadmap for selective deconstruction of lignocellulosic biomass to advanced biofuels and useful co-products

Chemical catalysis has the potential to transform biomass components directly to alkanes, aromatics, and other useful molecules for the production of advanced (drop-in) biofuels, with improved carbon and energy efficiencies. The Center for Direct Catalytic Conversion of Biomass to Biofuels (C3Bio) is a DOE-funded Energy Frontier Research Center, comprising an interdisciplinary team of plant biologists, chemists and chemical engineers. We are developing catalytic processes to enable the extraction, fractionation, and depolymerization of cellulose and hemicellulose coupled to catalytic transformation of hexoses and pentoses into hydrocarbons. Additional catalysts may cleave the ether bonds of lignin to release useful aromatic co-products or that may oxidize lignols to quinones. In a parallel approach, fast-hydropyrolysis is a relatively simple and scalable thermal conversion process. Our understanding of biomass-catalyst interactions require novel imaging and analysis platforms, such as mass spectrometry to analyze potentially complex mixtures of reaction products and transmission electron tomography to image the effects of applying catalysts to biomass and to provide data for computational modeling. By integrating biology, chemistry and chemical engineering, our data indicate how we might modify cell wall composition, or incorporate Trojan horse catalysts, to tailor biomass for physical and chemical conversion processes. We envision a road forward for directed construction and selective deconstruction of plant biomass feedstock.