Production of Renewable Hydrocarbon Biofuels with Lignocellulose and Its Derivatives over Heterogeneous Catalysts

In recent years, the issues of global warming and CO2 emission reduction have garnered increasing global attention. In the 21st Conference of the Parties (convened in Paris in 2015), 179 nations and the European Union signed a pivotal agreement to limit the global temperature increase of this century to well below 2 K above preindustrial levels. To fulfill this objective, extensive research has been conducted to use renewable energy sources as potential replacements for traditional fossil fuels. Among them, the production of hydrocarbon transportation fuels from CO2-neutral and renewable biomass has proven to be a particularly promising solution due to its compatibility with existing infrastructure. This review systematically summarizes research progress in the synthesis of liquid hydrocarbon biofuels from lignocellulose during the past two decades. Based on the chemical structure (including n-paraffins, iso-paraffins, aromatics, and cycloalkanes) of hydrocarbon transportation fuels, the synthesis pathways of these biofuels are discussed in four separate sections. Furthermore, this review proposes three guiding principles for the design of practical hydrocarbon biofuels, providing insights into future directions for the development of viable biomass-derived liquid fuels.