Powering a Greener Future
A biorefinery is a facility that integrates biomass conversion processes and equipment to produce fuels, power, and value-added chemicals from biomass. Biorefinery is analogous to today’s petroleum refinery, which produces multiple fuels and products from petroleum. By producing several products, a biorefinery takes advantage of the various components in biomass and their intermediates, therefore maximizing […]
The major techno-commercial limitations of existing biofuels has catalyzed the development of advanced biofuels such as cellulosic ethanol, biobutanol and mixed alcohols. Biobutanol is generating good deal of interest as a potential green alternative to petroleum fuels. It is increasingly being considered as a superior automobile fuel in comparison to bioethanol as its energy content […]
There is immense potential of biomass energy in Southeast Asia due to plentiful supply of diverse forms of biomass wastes including agricultural residues, agro-industrial wastes, woody biomass, animal wastes, municipal solid waste, etc. Southeast Asia is a big producer of wood and agricultural products which, when processed in industries, produces large amounts of biomass residues. […]
The Government of India approved the National Policy on Biofuels in December 2009. The biofuel policy encouraged the use of renewable energy resources as alternate fuels to supplement transport fuels (petrol and diesel for vehicles) and proposed a target of 20 percent biofuel blending (both biodiesel and bioethanol) by 2017. The government launched the National […]
Biochemical conversion of biomass involves use of bacteria, microorganisms and enzymes to breakdown biomass into gaseous or liquid fuels, such as biogas or bioethanol. The most popular biochemical technologies are anaerobic digestion (or biomethanation) and fermentation. Anaerobic digestion is a series of chemical reactions during which organic material such as human waste is decomposed through […]
Biofuel commercialization has proved to be costly and lingering than expected due to its high production cost and modification to flexibility in engines. Drop-in fuels are alternatives to existing liquid fuels without any significant modification in engines and infrastructures. According to IEA, “Drop-in biofuels are liquid bio-hydrocarbons that are functionally equivalent to petroleum fuels and […]
Global demand for fuel efficiency, environmental quality and energy security have elicited global attention towards liquid biofuels, such as bioethanol and biodiesel. Around the world, governments have introduced various policy measurements, mandatory fuel blending programmes, incentives for flex fuel vehicles and agricultural subsidies for the farmers. In India, the government launched Ethanol Blended Petrol (EBP) […]
Lignocellulosic biomass consists of a variety of materials with distinctive physical and chemical characteristics. It is the non-starch based fibrous part of plant material. Lignocellulose is a generic term for describing the main constituents in most plants, namely cellulose, hemicelluloses, and lignin. Lignocellulose is a complex matrix, comprising many different polysaccharides, phenolic polymers and proteins. […]
Ethanol from lignocellulosic biomass is produced mainly via biochemical route. The three major steps involved in the biochemical method for ethanol production are pretreatment, enzymatic hydrolysis, and fermentation. Biomass is pretreated to improve the accessibility of enzymes. After pretreatment, biomass undergoes enzymatic hydrolysis for conversion of polysaccharides into monomer sugars, such as glucose and xylose. […]
Biofuels refers to liquid or gaseous fuels for the transport sector that are predominantly produced from biomass. A variety of fuels can be produced from biomass resources including liquid fuels, such as ethanol, methanol, biodiesel, Fischer-Tropsch diesel, and gaseous fuels, such as hydrogen and methane. The biomass feedstock for biofuel production is composed of a […]
Cellulosic ethanol technology is one of the most commonly discussed second-generation biofuel technologies worldwide. Cellulosic biofuels are derived from the cellulose in plants, some of which are being developed specifically as “energy” crops rather than for food production. These include perennial grasses and trees, such as switchgrass and Miscanthus. Crop residues, in the form of […]