Abstract

Chemurgy is the branch of applied chemistry concerned with the industrial use of biomass for fuel and chemicals. The biomass may be industrial crops, such as trees, cotton, or oilseeds; food crops, such as corn or soy; or wastes and by-products, such as forest trimmings, tall oil, or straw. Chemurgic processes and applications range from relatively simple physical or chemical separations, such as milling, to more sophisticated enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose and fermentation to produce ethanol. Lignocellulosic materials, such as forest or farm wastes, can, in principle, generate most of the basic chemical building blocks now produced from oil and gas. Pyrolysis can generate oils and fuel gases to serve as alternative energy sources. The viability of chemurgic processes depends heavily on the costs of fossil fuels, considered as economic alternatives, and on the costs of biomass raw materials and the efficiencies of conversion processes.