Abstract
Biomass is renewable resources for material and energy, which can really achieve sustainable societies. The amount of carbon contained in biomass annually unutilized and emitted into environment in Japan is about 30-40% of carbon consumed to produce a variety of petrochemicals from oil . Also, biobased products can be reused and/or recycled easily as compared to oil-basis plastics. These facts mean in principle that we already have plenty of renewable resources as far as materials concerned. A concept of "Biomass Refinery" has been proposed recently as an alternative of oil refinery, where services can be provided by biochemicals and biobased products. In this work, material conversion technologies developed in the Monbusyo project, "Zero Emissions Oriented Material Cycle Processes" (The Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture; Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Priority Areas 292, 1996-2000), were summarided and organized in comparison with traditional and conventional biomass utilization technologies.
