KU Leuven map out how wood could replace petroleum in chemical industry

In Belgium, an interdisciplinary team of bioscience engineers and economists from KU Leuven has mapped out how wood could replace petroleum in the chemical industry. They not only looked at the technological requirements, but also whether that scenario would be financially viable. A shift from petroleum to wood would lead to a reduction in CO2 emissions, the researchers state in Science.

The team of researchers previously published on how wood can be transformed into chemicals that can be used in a plethora of products. That process has now been fully mapped out. Moreover, they calculated that it can be financially feasible to build and run a biorefinery that converts wood into chemical building blocks.