Gianluca & Wiebren’s Patent
Congratulations to our Associate Consultant Gianluca Marcotullio (and also Wiebren) on the publication of United States Patent Application 20120108829!
Gianluca has a special business focus on technologies that reduce energy (= steam reduction in furfural plants) and complements the DalinYebo team with his particular interest and knowledge in the field of process development for new generation biorefineries. Gianluca has a personal interest in the furfural chemistry and technology, which is published in his thesis “The Chemistry And Technology Of Furfural For Modern Lignocellulose-Feedstock Biorefineries (Furfural, the sleeping beauty)” and now also in the above United States Patent Application:
The invention is directed to a process for the production of furfural from pentoses and/or water soluble pentosans, said process comprising converting the said pentoses and/or water soluble pentosans in aqueous solution in a first step to furfural and in a second step feeding the aqueous solution containing furfural obtained in the first step to the top of a distillation column to produce an aqueous, liquid downflow, which column is heated at the bottom to produce an upflow water vapour flow, recovering a gaseous water and furfural containing product stream from the top of the said column, compressing the said vapour flow and condensing it on the hot side of a reboiler at the bottom of the said column.
