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Review
. 2014 May 4:2014:463074.
doi: 10.1155/2014/463074. eCollection 2014.

Current challenges in commercially producing biofuels from lignocellulosic biomass

Venkatesh Balan  1
Affiliations
Review

Current challenges in commercially producing biofuels from lignocellulosic biomass

Venkatesh Balan. ISRN Biotechnol. .

Abstract

Biofuels that are produced from biobased materials are a good alternative to petroleum based fuels. They offer several benefits to society and the environment. Producing second generation biofuels is even more challenging than producing first generation biofuels due the complexity of the biomass and issues related to producing, harvesting, and transporting less dense biomass to centralized biorefineries. In addition to this logistic challenge, other challenges with respect to processing steps in converting biomass to liquid transportation fuel like pretreatment, hydrolysis, microbial fermentation, and fuel separation still exist and are discussed in this review. The possible coproducts that could be produced in the biorefinery and their importance to reduce the processing cost of biofuel are discussed. About $1 billion was spent in the year 2012 by the government agencies in US to meet the mandate to replace 30% existing liquid transportation fuels by 2022 which is 36 billion gallons/year. Other countries in the world have set their own targets to replace petroleum fuel by biofuels. Because of the challenges listed in this review and lack of government policies to create the demand for biofuels, it may take more time for the lignocellulosic biofuels to hit the market place than previously projected.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Contribution of renewable energy and biofuels in the total energy consumed in the world in 2011 [4]. Here, (a) gives details about world energy consumption; (b) gives details about world renewable energy consumption, and (c) gives details about different feedstock currently used for ethanol production.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Projected biofuels (gallons/year) production capacity in US. Figure source: Congressional Research Service report number R40155. “Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) overview and issues” January 23, 2012. The starch based ethanol will saturate at 15 billion gallons/year after 2011 and the amount of cellulosic biofuels production in the US will rise as high as 16 billion gallon/year.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Different feedstocks used in the first and second generation biorefinery for producing biofuels, biochemicals, food, and feed.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Current and project biomass availability in US based on several assumptions. The data for this plot was taken from billion ton study (2011).
Figure 5
Figure 5
Biomass transportation in a centralized and decentralized biorefinery operation (a). Various forms of biomass that will be used in a 2000 ton per day biorefinery and how many times the truck has to transport this biomass is shown (b). Moisture content of each of this biomass is given inside the bars.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Two possible xylose metabolic pathways that are commonly used in yeast and bacteria.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Two commonly used methods for separating ethanol from fermentation broth other than traditional distillation method in a biorefinery.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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