Biofuels: Alternative Feedstocks and Conversion Processes

Global concern for energy security and environmental protection has put great emphasis on the search for alternative energy sources, particularly for the transport sector. Biofuels have emerged as a highly promising source of alternative energy, and have drawn global R&D for their production using biomass.

With the increasing worldwide demand of energy along with the depletion of conventional fossil fuel reserves, there has been growing global interest in developing alternative sources of energy. There has also been concern in growing economies regarding energy security. Biofuels offer much promise on these frontiers. In addition to the above, they also have a reduced environmental impact in comparison to fossil fuels. Biofuels provides state-of-the-art information on the status of biofuel production and related aspects.

Detailed overview of the alternative energy field and the role of biofuels as new energy sourcesGives a detailed account of the production of biodiesel from non conventional bio-feedstocks such as algae and vegetable oilsIncludes production of biohydrogen: the fourth generation biofuel

Section I: General 1. Principles of biorefining (F. Cherubini and A.H. Stromman) 2. Life-cycle assessment of biofuels (E. Gnansounou and A. Dauriat) 3. Thermochemical conversion of biomass to biofuels (T. Bhaskar, B. Balagurumurthy, R. Singh, D.V. Naik, A. Kumar, H.B. Goyal) 4. Biomass-derived syngas fermentation into biofuels (P.C. Munasinghe and S.K. Khanal) Section II: Production of bioethanol from lignocellulosic feedstocks 5. Lignocellulosic bioethanol: current status and future perspectives (C.R. Soccol, V. Faraco, S. Karp, L.P.S. Vandenberghe,V. Thomaz-Soccol, A. Woiciechowski and A. Pandey) 6. Technoeconomic analysis of lignocellulosic ethanol (E. Gnansounou and A. Dauriat) 7. Pretreatment technologies for lignocellulose-to-bioethanol conversion (E. Tomas-Pejo, P. Alvira, M. Ballesteros and M.J. Negro) 8. Production of celluloytic enzymes for the hydrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass (R.R. Singhania) 9. Production of hemicellulolytic enzymes for hydrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass (S. Manju and B. Singh Chadha) 10. Hydrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass for bioethanol production (P. Binod, K. Janu, R. Sindhu and A. Pandey) 11. Production of bioethanol from agroindustrial residues as feedstocks (J.A. Quintero, L.E. Rincon and C.A. Cardona) 12. Fermentation inhibitors in ethanol processes and different strategies to reduce their effects (M.J. Taherzadeh and K. Karimi) Section IIIA: Production of biodiesel from vegetable oils 13. Biotechnological methods to produce biodiesel (D.M. Guimaraes Freire, J.S. de Sousa  and  E. d’Avila Cavalcanti-Oliveira) 14. Biodiesel production in supercritical fluids (Kok Tat Tan and Keat Teong Lee) 15. Production of biodiesel using palm oil (Man Kee Lam and Keat Teong Lee) 16. Biodiesel production from waste oils (Lien-Huong Huynh, Novy S. Kasim and Yi-Hsu Ju) Section IIIB: Production of biofuels from algae 17. Production of biodiesel from algal biomass: current perspectives and future (Yi-Feng Chen and Qingyu Wu)  18. Overview and assessment of algal biofuels production technologies (G.S. Murthy) 19. Cultivation of algae in photobioreactors for biodiesel production (J. Pruvost)  Section IV: Production of biohydrogen 20. Production of biohydrogen: current perspectives and future prospects (Kuan-Yeow Show, Duu-Jong Lee and Zhen-Peng Zhang) 21. Biohydrogen production from bio-oil (A. Kumar and S. Sarkar) 22. Biohydrogen production from industrial effluents (S. Venkata Mohan, G. Mohanakrishna and S. Srikanth) 23. Thermophilic biohydrogen production (D. Karakashev and I. Angelidaki) 24. Biohydrogen production with high-rate bioreactors (Wen-Wei Li and Han-Qing Yu) Section V: Production of biobuutanol and other green fuels 25. Butanol fuel from Biomass: Revisiting ABE fermentation (R.K. Sukumaran, L.D. Gottumukkala, K. Rajasree, D. Alex and A. Pandey) 26. Production of green liquid hydrocarbon fuels (A. Ray and A. Anumakonda)