Recent progress and perspectives of catalyst design and downstream integration in biomass tar reforming

In the last few decades, the development of biomass energy has become a key research focus to press the emissions of greenhouse gas. Syngas production from biomass tar reforming in the presence of the heterogeneous catalyst has been proved to be a clean and promising technology, which could be further connected to the downstream for fuel valorization. Up to now, some literatures has screened the reaction pressure, temperature, atmosphere, and heterogeneous catalyst in tar elimination during the biomass thermochemical conversion process. However, there are some problems, like the economical catalyst chosen for the industrial development of gasification, and integration difficulties between gasification and downstream technologies are still not well discussed. Hence, in this review, we first assess the recent advancements in catalyst fabrication and the activity performance in reforming biomass tar and tar model compounds. After that, the clean-up of produced gas for the next-step application is reviewed. Importantly, we discuss the composition of the produced gas, the possibilities and challenges of the integration with the production of methane, methanol, ethanol, and C2+ alcohols. Finally, the conclusion and prospective are concluded to give an outlook for the development of catalyst, biomass tar reforming, and integration with downstream technologies.

Automated summary

The development of biomass energy is crucial for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, with syngas production from biomass tar reforming being a clean and promising technology. However, challenges such as choosing cost-effective catalysts for industrial gasification and integrating gasification with downstream technologies still need further discussion in order to fully realize the potential of biomass energy.