Recent progress of low-temperature plasma technology in biorefining process

Area of Science:

• Plasma Science and Engineering
• Green Chemistry
• Biomass Conversion Technologies

Background:

• Low-temperature plasma processes offer high efficiency and broad applicability for biomass valorization, surpassing conventional methods.
• Key active species in plasma processing include charged particles, energetic molecules, radicals, and photons.
• Biomass conversion is crucial for sustainable chemical production and waste reduction.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review the applications of low-temperature plasma in biomass conversion.
• To cover biomass pretreatment, chemo-fractionation into value-added chemicals, and heterogeneous catalyst synthesis.
• To discuss recent advancements in plasma-assisted chemo-catalysis and plasma-synthesized catalysts.

Main Methods:

• Review of literature on low-temperature plasma applications in biomass valorization.
• Analysis of plasma's role in biomass pretreatment (reducing crystallinity, aiding purification and delignification).
• Examination of plasma-assisted chemo-catalytic conversion reactions (e.g., hydrolysis, hydrogenation).
• Investigation of heterogeneous catalysts synthesized using low-temperature plasma methods.

Main Results:

• Low-temperature plasma effectively pretreats biomass, reducing recalcitrance.
• Plasma enables chemo-fractionation of biomass into valuable chemicals.
• Plasma-synthesized heterogeneous catalysts demonstrate performance comparable to conventionally prepared catalysts.
• Plasma-assisted processes operate under mild conditions.

Conclusions:

• Low-temperature plasma is a versatile and efficient technology for sustainable biomass valorization.
• Plasma-based methods provide a promising route for producing value-added chemicals and advanced catalysts.
• Further research into plasma-biomass interactions can unlock new avenues for green chemistry and biorefining.