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Biodiesel, Power Alcohol and Butanol Production
Published in Debabrata Das, Soumya Pandit, Industrial Biotechnology, 2021
Change in land use: Agricultural alcohol production requires large-scale cultivation, and this requires significant quantities of planted land. University of Minnesota researchers claim that even if all U.S.-grown corn were utilized to generate ethanol it would deplete 12 percent of current U.S. fuel consumption. There are many fears that deforestation cultivates land for ethanol production, while some have indicated that areas currently supporting trees are not necessarily suitable for growing crops. Farming will in any case require a decrease in soil fertility due to a reduction in organic matter. Reduced water quality and production have intensified pesticide and fertilizer use and subsequent dislocation of urban communities. Advanced technology enables producers and processors to effectively generate the same production with less input. The development of cellulosic ethanol is a recent method, which may mitigate land use and related issues (Tomás-Pejó et al., 2008). In an effort to mitigate conflict amongst food requirements versus fuel needs, cellulosic ethanol can be produced from any plant matter, potentially doubling yield. Instead of using just starch by-products from the grinding of wheat and other crops, the production of cellulosic ethanol maximizes the use of all plant materials such as gluten. This solution would have a lower carbon footprint while the number of energy-intensive fertilizers and fungicides with greater material usage remains the same. The technology for the manufacture of cellulosic ethanol is now in the commercialization stage.
Bioenergy Production: Biomass Sources and Applications
Published in Arindam Kuila, Sustainable Biofuel and Biomass, 2019
Vartika Verma, Priya Singh, Gauri Singhal, Samuel Jacob
Biomass that is obtained from the cellulosic plants, such as willows, poplars, and switchgrass, has gained more interest among the scientists. This fibrous biomass is generally found in the edible parts of the plants in abundance and can be easily collected from diverse regions. Currently, cellulosic biomass market is limited because some companies have purchased the cellulosic biomass for pellets. Now, the commercial production of cellulosic ethanol is done by few companies. Native plants and trees can be the prime sources for the development of the bioenergy. They can be grown with minimum inputs such as fertilizer, water, and chemicals and can easily be harvested for multiple times. Various other energy crops have also been explored for the bioenergy potential.
Hydrolysis and Fermentation Technologies for Alcohols
Published in Yatish T. Shah, Water for Energy and Fuel Production, 2014
Ethanol can be used as E10 (10% ethanol in gasoline), E22 (gasohol used in Brazil), E85 (85% ethanol used in flexible fuel automobiles in Brazil as well in the United States), or E100 (100% ethanol) [2]. It has a high research octane number, makes the engine more efficient, has reasonable vapor pressure, and helps reduce emissions of NOT, volatile organic compound (VOC), CO, and ( CO2. It fits well the new Clean Air Act Amendments (CAAA) of 1990, which requires (1) 2% of oxygen by weight in gasoline, (2) maximum benzene content of 2%, and (3) maximum of 25% by volume aromatic hydrocarbons. While ethanol can be used up to 20% in gasoline for conventional cars, it is also very useful for flexible cars and two-cycle engines. Up to 25% ethanol can also be added in acetylene-based dual-fuel systems. Cellulose ethanol will be an important contributor to 32 billion of renewable fuel mandate by the US government by 2022 [2].
A branch-and-price approach for a biomass feedstock logistics supply chain design problem
Published in IISE Transactions, 2019
Maichel M. Aguayo, Subhash C. Sarin, John S. Cundiff
Cellulosic ethanol is a renewable fuel that can supplement the fossil fuels used in the transportation sector. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 established a minimum volume of renewable fuels required for blending into transportation fuel from 9 billion gallons in 2008 to 36 billions gallons by 2022. By that year, 44.4% of the 36 billion gallons of renewable fuel must be produced from cellulosic ethanol. This has lead to investigation of ways to effectively produce and distribute renewable fuels. Even though the availability of biomass for conversion into energy has been demonstrated by several studies, a key challenge in generating this energy is to achieve a reduction in feedstock transportation cost, which has been shown to be 35–60% of the total cost of cellulosic ethanol paid at retail pumps (Fales et al., 2008). It is, therefore, essential to reduce this cost as much as possible in order to make cellulosic ethanol a viable alternative to oil. In this article, we address this problem, and, in particular, focus on the design of a cost-effective feedstock logistics supply chain encountered during the production of switchgrass-based ethanol.
Government subsidy provision in biomass energy supply chains
Published in Enterprise Information Systems, 2019
Zhong-Zhong Jiang, Na He, Lei Xiao, Ying Sheng
Our work investigates how to improve the initiative of members in biomass energy supply chain from the perspective of government by designing the subsidy strategy. The role of government subsidies is analysed in the literature in different contexts. Regarding this issue, Luo and Miller (2013) show that the government’s incentives would be necessary to achieve the cellulosic ethanol goals under the US Renewable Fuel Standard. Also, Alizamir, Véricourt, and Sun (2016) analyse the effect of Feed-in-tariff policies in the biomass energy supply chain and show the success or failure of Feed-in-tariff policies depending on how these tariffs are adjusted over time. Zhai, Zhang, and Cheng (2016) discuss two strategies in biomass power supply chain: one is to provide electricity subsidies, and the other one is to charge penalty to the farmer who burns the straw. Kök, Shang, and Yucel (2016) discover the difference between flat pricing policy and peak pricing policy, the direct subsidy (tax credit) and indirect subsidy (carbon tax) for renewable energy and conventional energy. They indicate that flat pricing policy may result in a higher consumer surplus and lower carbon emissions. Moreover, indirect subsidies can lead to lower renewable energy investments. Further, Aflaki and Netessine (2017) consider the supply intermittency of renewable energy for investing in renewable electricity. They present that the investment may reduce under the market liberalisation while increasing the overall system’s emissions and cost.
Tobacco biomass as a source of advanced biofuels
Published in Biofuels, 2019
Florin G. Barla, Sandeep Kumar
The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 set up a mandate to increase the production of biofuels to 36 billion gallons per year (BGY) by 2022 [1,2]. Out of the total 36 BGY of biofuels, 15 BGY would come from corn ethanol and the remaining 21 BGY are needed from lignocellulosic or other second and third nonfood-based biomass (microalgae, lipid based plants) sources. The development of cellulosic ethanol has been unexpectedly slow due to several technological challenges [1]. As compared to the production of bioethanol from corn, the use of lignocellulosic biomass is more complicated because the polysaccharides are more stable and are not readily available and fermentable by Saccharomyces cerevisiae, whereas the starch from corn can be made available via enzymatic hydrolysis. The concept is to hydrolyze cellulose and hemicelluloses to recover monomeric C5 and C6 sugars, and then ferment the sugars to bioethanol [3]. The residual lignin which has a relatively higher heating value (24 to 25 MJ/kg) is generally used for generating steam or providing the process heat, and also can be converted to valuable aromatic compounds such as vanillin [4].