Dr. Domenico Licursi (6h), Dr. Nicola Di Fidio (6h), Dr. Sara Fulginati (6h)
Università di Pisa
Dal 16/09/2024 al 4/10/2024
EMAIL: domenico.licursi@unipi.it , nicola.difidio@unipi.it; sara.fulignati@unipi.it
Modern biorefinery schemes involve the synergistic combination of different catalytic approaches and process technologies for the conversion of renewable resources into a plethora of added-value bio-products. In the field of thermochemical biomass processing, the pyrolysis route is mainly aimed at the production of solid (biochar), liquid (bio-oil), and gaseous (syngas) streams from biomass feedstocks. Catalytic pyrolysis is often chosen for improving the biomass conversion into the bio-oil to be directly used as bio-fuel, and for the bio-oil upgrading into more added-value bio-products (aromatics). In this course, catalytic pyrolysis will be discussed in detail, considering the involved reaction mechanisms, the most attractive feedstocks/catalysts and the available technologies, highlighting the still unsolved bottlenecks/future opportunities.
On the other hand, biocatalytic approaches are based on the use of a free or immobilized pure enzyme (or an enzymatic mixture) or the whole cell of a specific microorganism. In this course, the student will be introduced to the fundamental aspects of applied biochemistry and industrial biocatalysis in modern biorefinery processes and some examples of application of this technology to relevant target compounds will be also presented.