(206c) Process Analytical Technologies in Biofuel Research

Biofuels represent a promising solution to replace fossil fuels and especially second generation biofuels which derived from lignocellulosic feedstock such as forestry and/or agricultural residues widely available in countries such as Canada. However, the
development of the second-generation biofuels by integrated biorefineries is facing several
challenges. For example, the lignocellulosic biomass is highly heterogenous and standard
laboratory characterization protocols (ASTM, TAPPI, NREL) require 8 to 10 days to be
completed in order to determine the biomass chemical composition such as ash and
moisture contents, extractives, cellulose, hemicelluloses and lignin. Unfortunately, this
time frame is incompatible with the development of integrated biorefineries because the
economic value of a shipment and the selected conversion process depend on the biomass
chemical composition and a long storage time could degrade the biomass.

Recently, Process Analytical Technologies (PAT) have gained a strong interest with the
development of new instrumentations. PAT can be defined as a tool box including
multivariate analysis, data acquisition and analysis tools capable of analyzing, controlling
and improving processes.

In the field of pharmaceuticals, PAT using spectroscopies such as Near-Infrared (NIR),
Mid-Infrared (MIR) and Raman have been successfully applied to characterize industrial
processes. These techniques are now being deployed in others fields such as biofuels. PAT
are very promising because they could potentially allow characterizing reactants,
intermediates and products which could facilitate the development of actual and new
conversion processes and could reduce the time required for characterization and especially
for biomass feedstock. In addition, recent works have also demonstrated the benefits of
PAT in terms of waste reduction, energy efficiency and real-time analysis.