Physicochemical Conversion Technologies of Biomass for Bioenergy Production

Global energy consumption has continued to escalate due to rising population, urbanization, and industrialization. The world energy landscape has been dominated by fossil-based (FB) energy sources with attendant rising dangerous emissions, worsening air quality, and deteriorating ecosystems. Meeting the energy demand will require the conversion of biomass and other waste materials into renewable energy, including bioenergy as a sustainable and eco-friendly alternative to the debilitating FB energy sources. This study explores the various physicochemical conversion technologies for biomass conversion to bioenergy. The conversion of biomass to bioenergy through various technologies such as hydrothermal conversion processes, supercritical fluid extraction, microwave-assisted conversion, solvent liquefaction, hydrogenation, and carbonization processes yield biooil, biocrude, hydrochar, biochar, hydrogen, syngas, chemicals, and other bioproducts. The review concludes that physicochemical conversion technologies are easy to achieve, cost-effective, require little or no pretreatment, and ensure the production of high energy density products. The deployment of physicochemical techniques for biomass conversion will reduce overreliance on FB energy sources, contribute to energy security, and environmental sustainability. Development of innovative reactor designs, use of nanocatalysts, optimization, and modelling of process parameters, incentivizing waste conversion, and dilution of sociocultural biases against waste utilization will assist in overcoming the challenges associated with physicochemical biomass conversion and escalate bioenergy production from biomass.