Lignocellulosic biomass for a new generation of thermal fluids

Abstract

The increasing demand for fossil fuels, conjugated with the decreasing in oil reserves, led to a sharp rise of chemicals and materials derived from petroleum. Resulting in an increase desire from industry to seek for sustainable and alternative sources for key commodity chemicals or suitable equivalents Plant biomass represents one of the most important renewable energy sources for Europe, however much of the lignocellulosic biomass is often disposed of by burning, even in the rich and developed countries. Although, in the past years, there have been a strong effort in the research and valorisation of these residues. Therefore, lignocellulosic biomass can potentially be converted into different high value products including bio-fuels, value added fine chemicals, and cheap energy sources for microbial fermentation and enzyme production. The growing awareness of the need for energy efficiency gains requires new approaches for problems that, during the time of cheap energy and unlimited raw materials resources, were not the object of special care for industry and consequently, for research. In the case of heat and mass transfer, the increase in efficiency must be promoted by using new heat transfer fluids. Recently, ionic liquids (ILs) have proven to be suitable alternatives for many applications in industry and chemical manufacturing, even in the field of heat transfer and energy storage. Namely, the suspension of nanomaterials in ionic liquids proved to increase the thermal conductivity of the IoNanofluid in relation to the base ionic liquid. ILs have also being study in several biomass processes, particularly in the dissolution of cellulose