Sustainable Production of Fuels, Chemicals, and Fibers from Forest Biomass

Wood has always been-and continues to be-an important natural resource. Millions of tons of wood and forest biomass are harvested each year and converted to construction materials, commodity products, specialty chemicals, and fuel. We may have long taken for granted this invaluable natural resource bestowed on us through photosynthesis, partly because we have indulged in petroleum-based products and energy for over a century. Concerns over depletion of fossil fuel and global climate change drive us to search for alternative sources of energy that are sustainable and have less environmental impacts than petroleum. Although we have a number of potential options, forest biomass stands out because of (1) a vibrant forest products industry that is equipped with efficient infrastructures, logistics, and highly skilled human capital and (2) the potential for replacing the entire spectrum of petroleum-based products and chemicals with renewable materials and chemicals from forest biomass. There are huge challenges to developing and commercializing new technologies to the scale of several thousand tons of biomass per day (which may take decades) and the significant benefits-and potential short cut-of aligning with century-old industrial giants, such as the forest products industry, with mature and efficient production capabilities. This book offers a perspective on transforming the technologies, infrastructures, and knowledge that are part of forest products manufacturing processes to help establish a forest biorefinery industry for sustainable production of energy, chemicals, and products. The forest products industry has a wealth of experience and history of innovation in producing a variety of biomaterials, such as engineered wood products, pulp and paper, cellulose derivatives, textile materials, and specialty chemicals. This book explores the immense opportunity for developing next-generation bioproducts, chemicals, and materials from forest biomass.Preface ; Feedstock, Availability, Production, and Harvesting ; 1. Forest Biomass Sustainability and Availability ; K. E. Skog and J. A. Stanturf ; 2. Woody Biomass from Short Rotation Energy Crops ; R. S. Zalesny, Jr., M. W. Cunningham, R. B. Hall, J. Mirck, D. L. Rockwood, J. A. Stanturf, and T. A. Volk ; 3. Biomass Logistics - Harvest and Storage ; Kevin J. Shinners, Matthew F. Digman, and Troy M. Runge ; Woody Biomass Deconstruction ; 4. Physical Pretreatment ? Woody Biomass Size Reduction ? for Forest Biorefinery ; J. Y. Zhu ; 5. Chemistry and Reactions of Forest Biomass in Biorefining ; S. Elumalai and X. J. Pan ; 6. The Influence of Lignin on the Enzymatic Hydrolysis of Pretreated Biomass Substrates ; Seiji Nakagame, Richard P. Chandra, and Jack N. Saddler ; Fuels from Lignocelluloses ; 7. Approaches To Deal with Toxic Inhibitors during Fermentation of Lignocellulosic Substrates ; T. L. Richardson, N. K. Harner, P. K. Bajwa, J. T. Trevors, and H. Lee ; 8. Hydrogen Production from Carbohydrates: A Mini-Review ; Y.-H. Percival Zhang ; Chemicals from Lignocelluloses ; 9. Chemicals from Hemicelluloses: A Review ; Feng Peng, Jun Li Ren, Feng Xu, and Run-Cang Sun ; 10. Chemicals from Lignin Based on Thermal Fusibility and Amphiphilicity ; Keiichi Koda, Satoshi Kubo, and Yasumitsu Uraki ; 11. Chemicals from Extractives ; Rodger P. Beatson ; Biomaterials from Lignocelluloses ; 12. Development and Properties of Nanocrystalline Cellulose ; Wadood Y. Hamad, Principal Scientist ; 13. Biofibers ; Y. Xu and R. M. Rowell ; 14. Development of Biodegradable Polymer Composites ; Long Jiang, Meng-Hsin Tsai, Scott Anderson, Michael P. Wolcott, and Jinwen Zhang ; Forest Biorefinery Based on Pulp and Paper Industrial Technologies ; 15. Modify Existing Pulp and Paper Mills for Biorefinery Operations ; Xiao Zhang, Michael G. Paice, and James Deng ; 16. Integrated Forest Biorefinery ? Sulfite Process ; Pedram Fatehi and Yonghao Ni ; 17. Integrated Forest Biorefineries ? Near-Neutral Process ; Adriaan van Heiningen, Joseph Genco, Sunghoon Yoon, Mehmet S. Tunc, Haixuan Zou, Jie Luo, Haibo Mao, and Hemant Pendse ; 18. Integrated Forest Biorefinery - Prehydrolysis/Dissolving Pulping Process ; Pedram Fatehi and Yonghao Ni ; Editors' Biographies ; Author Index ; Subject Index