At present, Dr. David Serrano is the Director of the IMDEA Energy Institute and Full Professor of Chemical Engineering at Rey Juan Carlos University. He is also Head of the Thermochemical Processes Unit at IMDEA Energy.He received his Ph.D. from Complutense University of Madrid (1990) awarded with the Extraordinary Mention. He has been Visiting Associated in the California Institute of Technology (CALTECH, 1991) and in the California University of Santa Barbara (2006). He was appointed as Associate Professor at Complutense University of Madrid (1990-1999), and subsequently at Rey Juan Carlos University. In the latter, he was appointed as Full Professor (2002) and was in charge of different management and academic positions: Coordinator of the Environmental Sciences Area (1999-2001), Vice-rector for Research and Technological Innovation (2001-2002) and Head of the Chemical and Environmental Technology Department (2002-2007). His teaching activity has been focused on subjects related to Chemical Engineering, Environmental Engineering and Energy Engineering in a number of degrees, masters and Ph.D. courses.He has participated in about 50 research projects funded by both public and private institutions, with a significant number of collaborations established with the industrial sector. Currently, he is coordinator of the FP7 EU CASCATBEL project, aimed to the conversion of lignocellulosicbiomass into advanced biofuels through catalytic routes.He has been author of about 150 publications in scientific journals. Likewise, he has been author of more than 200 communications to congresses and scientific meetings, of 5 patents and of 4 books. He has been supervisor of 19 Ph.D. theses. He has been member of the Executive Board of the ACENET network (ERA-NET for Applied Catalysis Research in Europe) and of the “Círculo de Innovación en Tecnologías Medioambientales y Energía” (CITME). He is member of the Scientific Committee of CIESOL (Almería, Spain) and of the German Biomass Research Centre (Leipzig, Germany), as well as of different scientific associations. He has been member of the scientific committee of several journals and of a number of scientific workshops and congresses. In 2011 he was Chairman of the 6th edition of the International Symposium on Feedstock Recycling of Plastics (ISFR2011, Toledo, Spain).

A high interest has arisen in recent years in novel processes for the transformation of different types of biomass into advanced biofuels. The use of non-edible biomass sources and the overall sustainability of the process are very important factors to be considered in the development of new routes for the production of second-generation biofuels. In this way, lignocellulosic biomass appears as a very interesting source of biomass due to its independency with the food market, its low cost and high availability in the form of agriculture and forest residues or as energy crops. Three main pathways are being explored for the thermochemical conversion of lignocellulose: gasification, pyrolysis and liquefaction. Biomass pyrolysis, depending on the temperature and the heating rate, yields gases, liquid and solid fractions with different proportions. The maximum yield in the liquid fraction (bio-oil) is attained when working at temperatures of about 500ºC and high heating rates (fast and flash pyrolysis). This is a relatively simple process that it is being implemented now at commercial scale in different countries. However, one of the unsolved problems is related to the complex composition of the bio-oil, which limits its use as fuel mainly in not very demanding applications, such as heating fuel. Bio-oil presents both high oxygen content and low calorific value. Moreover, it has an acidic pH, which provides it with undesirable properties. Accordingly, a variety of routes are being investigated for bio-oil upgrading into advanced biofuels, showing properties suitable for the transportation sector. These routes include a number of chemical transformations, such as catalytic pyrolysis, hydrodeoxygenation, ketonization, esterification, aldol condensation, alkylation, etc. In most cases, the catalysts to be developed should combine bifunctional properties, for removing a large part of the oxygen contained in the bio-oil and to modify the chemical structure of the compounds for its use as transportation fuels, with a high accessibility to the active sites.

Anthony Bridgwater is Professor of Chemicalengineering at Aston University in Birmingham UK. He has worked at Aston University for most of his professional career and is currently director of the European Bioenergy Research Institute. He has a world-wide research portfolio focussing on fast pyrolysis as a key technology in thermal biomass conversion for power, heat, biofuels and biorefineries. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Chemical Engineers and a Fellow of the Institute of Energy. He was technical Director of the UK Flagship SUPERGEN Bioenergy programmes for 8½ years until the end of 2011. In addition he has led and coordinated nine major EC research and development projects in bioenergy and has an active current involvement in six further research and development projects. He has attracted funding from national research funding councils in Canada, Holland, Norway and the USA. He has been responsible for raising over £28 million during his research career. He formed and led the IEA Bioenergy Pyrolysis Task – PyNe from 1994 to 2008 with parallel European networks on pyrolysis, gasification and combustion which included the EC sponsored ThermoNet and ThermalNet networks.

Fast pyrolysis for production of high yields of liquids (bio-oil) has now reached commercial reality, and there continues to be considerably increasing activities at the R&D level to develop processes and improve the quality of the liquid. The technology of fast pyrolysis is described followed by a comprehensive examination of the characteristics and quality requirements of bio-oil. This considers all aspects of the special characteristics of bio-oil – how they are created and the solutions available to help meet requirements for utilisation. Particular attention is paid to chemical and catalytic upgrading including, for example, incorporation into an oil refinery, production of hydrocarbons, chemicals, synthesis gas and hydrogen production which have seen a wide range of new research activities. An appreciation of the potential for bio-oil to meet a broad spectrum of applications in renewable energy has led to a significantly increased R&D activity that has focused on addressing liquid quality issues both for direct use for heat and power and indirect use for biofuels and green chemicals. This increased activity is evident in North America, Europe and Asia with many new entrants as well as expansion of existing activities. The only disappointment is the more limited industrial development and also deployment of fast pyrolysis processes that are necessary to provide the basic bio-oil raw material.

Philip T. Pienkos earned his BS in Honors Biology at the University of Illinois and his Ph.D, in Molecular Biology at the University of Wisconsin. He has nearly 30 years of biotechnology experience in the pharmaceutical, chemical and energy sectors. He is a co-founder of two companies: Celgene, an established biotech/pharma company, and Molecular Logix, a case study for technology-rich/funding-poor biotech startup. He joined NREL in 2007 as a section supervisor and now holds the title of Principal Group Manager for the Bioprocess R&D Group in the National Bioenergy Center. His group is involved in various aspects of strain development, process integration, compositional analysis, catalytic upgrading, and molecular modeling for advanced biofuels based on a wide variety of feedstocks including lignocellulosic biomass, algal biomass and methane. In addition to his line management responsibilities, he is also the Algal Biofuels Platform Lead for the National Bioenergy Center at NREL and serves as lead for a number of projects that are relevant to this proposal, including the BETO funded Lipid Catalysis Project and the ARPA-E funded Biological Gas to Liquid Project (part of the REMOTE Program). He is part of a team of algae experts from NREL and Sandia National Laboratories who worked with the Department of Energy to organize National Algal Biofuels Technology Roadmap Workshop held in December, 2008 and was a contributor to the National Algal Biofuels Technology Roadmap document, published in May, 2010. Philip is a founding member of the Algae Biomass Organization and has served as a member of the board of directors for that organization from 2008 to 2013. He is currently on the board of directors of the Algae Foundation. He was named in Biofuels Digest’s list of the top 100 people in biofuels for four years running.

Although algal biomass is considered to be a potentially high value feedstock for biofuel production, the path to commercialization is challenged by high production costs. This is largely due to high capital and operating costs for algal cultivation based on current technologies, but improvements in other unit operations will also be needed. This presentation will highlight research activities at NREL that are aimed at development of production strains with improved biofuel production characteristics, identification of large volume co-products, and development of novel technologies for biomass conversion to reduce costs and energy inputs. These activities will be placed into a framework of techno-economic analysis to help establish a scenario for an integrated algal biofuel production process that could compete with petroleum-based fuels.