Andrea Kruse

1 Introduction Climate change is considered one of the key challenges humanity currently faces 1. There is robust scientific consensus that it is caused by humankind 2. One of the main reasons is the use of enormous amounts of fossil carbon from natural sinks, leading to imbalances in the Earth's natural carbon cycle. The higher concentration of greenhouse gases, primarily CO2, in the atmosphere leads to higher temperatures and increased extreme weather events.

Thermogravimetry analysis Figure 7 illustrates the DTG analysis as a function of temperature for the raw MS and SS and their corresponding tor-chars. In general, the DTG analysis evolution profile of lignocellulosic biomass indicates that in temperatures up to 120 °C, the removal of moisture and very light volatiles occurs;52 at a higher temperature range (220–315 °C), hemicellulose decomposition takes place. Cellulose degradation has a temperature range of 250–380 °C.

1. Introduction Hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) appears to be a useful technology for the transformation of wet, organic wastes, such as sewage sludge and manure, into oxygenated, viscous bio-crude oil.(1−4) Biofuels production from this material has been shown to be feasible.(5) However, side streams, specifically the solid (HTL solids) and the liquid (HTL process water) phases, are also generated during HTL.