In the field of renewable energies biomass has its special place: Biomass is the only renewable source of carbon. Various types of biomass can be converted in thermochemical processes to platform chemicals, materials and other energy sources. Wet and dry biomass residues, energy crops and microalgae can be used. The focus will be on medium temperature processes which run off with about 200 °C to 600 °C. In this temperature range many chemical reactions are kinetically controlled and depend strongly on the chosen process conditions. This requires a high experimental and analytic procedure but allows also the adaptation of the processes for the production of application-specific products. Outgoing from the basic understanding of chemical reactions suitable processes can be developed up to the level of pilot plant scale for the production of solid, liquid and gaseous products and the products can also be conditioned for the requested applications.
