GERT-JAN GRUTER
CTO at Avantium and Professor of Industrial Sustainable Chemistry at the University of Amsterdam

In the previous issue of Chimica Oggi / Chemistry TODAY I discussed the option to use non-food, lignocellulosic biomass feedstock such as forestry waste (wood), grasses and straw, corn or wheat stover and bagasse (sugar cane residue) the so called second generation (2G) biomass feedstocks. One of the most important goals of 2G refining, to fractionate lignocellulose into mixed sugars, glucose and lignin (“cascading”) was discussed. 

In this issue of Chimica Oggi/Chemistry Today I will talk about the use of CO₂ as a chemical feedstock. This is often referred to as Carbon-Capture and Use (CCU) as alternative for pumping CO₂ underground in Carbon-Capture and Storage (CCS).

According to the Paris agreement of December 2015, Europe needs to reduce its current annual 4 billion tons of CO₂ emissions to 1 billion tons by 2050. According to the European Commission (https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/strategies/2050_en), we will probably only achieve half of this reduction with the current policies for efficiency, sustainable e ...