Pyrolysis kinetics for lignocellulosic biomass-to-oil from molecular modeling

Woody biomass is complex molecularly. It has long been used successfully as a chemical feedstock without understanding its components and their pyrolysis behavior at a molecular level, but such an understanding would bring new flexibility and control to processing design and operation. Recent data and modeling have in combination made much of cellulose pyrolysis quantitatively predictable. Hemicellulose and lignin are approaching that point, while predicting whole-wood pyrolysis is still complicated by factors like the presence of metal ions and three-dimensional effects.