Bio-ethylene production: alternatives for green chemicals and polymers

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Accurate reaction networks for alternative fuels: butanol isomers

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Duurzame productie van lichte alkenen: van fossiele naar hernieuwbare grondstoffen

The production of most chemicals and materials is based on a limited number of chemical building blocks. These base chemicals like ethene, propene and 1,3-butadiene are mainly produced by steam cracking of crude oil and natural gas products. This process is therefore the cornerstone of the current chemical industry, but is also one of the most energy consuming processes. The sustainability of this process can be improved by complementing the employed fossil resources with renewable resources. In this thesis it has been shown that the use of relatively cheap waste streams, like low-value oils and fats from food processing and certain byproducts of the papermaking industry, is very promising. At pilot plant scale it has been determined that high yields of light olefins and relatively long run-times can be expected. Also the use of advanced fundamental models can increase the efficiency of this process and reduce the total energy consumption. Optimal use of such models requires knowledge of the detailed composition of the employed reactor feed. A program has therefore been developed that enables fast and accurate derivation of this composition from a limited number of macroscopic properties of the reactor feedstock. Finally, a microkinetic model has been developed to simulate the controlling chemistry of steam cracking of the studied renewable resources. And this, using mostly ab initio calculated kinetic and thermodynamic data