Transforming biomass pyrolysis technologies to produce liquid smoke food flavouring.

Liquid smoke as an all-natural food indigent is traditionally produced by smouldering. This process has a low efficiency and causes air pollution. Biomass pyrolysis is an advanced thermochemical process, which can replace smouldering and hence, transition the production towards a circular process. Liquid smoke has a mature and steadily growing market, which provides an opportunity to commercialise biomass pyrolysis. This study addresses opportunities to produce liquid smoke by pyrolysis technologies. Recently developed technologies are reviewed including biomass pretreatment, fast pyrolysis, microwave pyrolysis and fractional condensation. They are considered as promising approaches for liquid smoke production. The advantage of liquid smoke production by fast pyrolysis is the higher gross profit over biofuel oil production. Challenges also exist in this transformation because of more requirements for food products manufacture such as food safety standards and sensory quality specifications. • Liquid smoke food flavouring is a high value product from woody biomass. • Liquid smoke and biofuel production via pyrolysis share a similar technology base. • Opportunities of pyrolysis technologies to improve the production are reviewed. • Fast pyrolysis has technical and economic benefits for liquid smoke production. • Challenges remain with respect to food safety standards and the flavour profile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]