Encyclopedia of Renewable Energy. James G. Speight

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      Biofuels

The term biofuel is a generic name for gaseous, liquid, or solid fuels that are not derived from fossil fuels or contain a proportion of non-fossil fuel. For the purposes of this text, the term alternate fuels is used to represent those fuels that are produced from plant sources as well as from other sources such as the organic constituents’ (predominantly biological in nature) municipal and industrial waste. Thus, biofuels are bio-materials that are produced made from renewable biological sources which are now contemplated as grown specifically for the purpose of providing useful heat upon combustion. Biofuels are produced from sources such as: corn, soybeans, flaxseed, rapeseed, sugarcane, palm oil, sugar beet raw sewage, food scraps, animal parts, and rice.

      Biofuels are fuels derived from plant materials – entering the market, driven by factors such as oil price spikes and the need for increased energy security. Examples of solid biofuels include wood, sawdust, grass cuttings, domestic refuse, charcoal, agricultural waste, non-food energy crops, and dried manure. Biofuels are also known as non-conventional fuels or alternative fuels. Alternative fuels can be classified as any fuel that is not derived from conventional sources like natural gas, crude oil, and coal.

      Other than biofuels, some more examples of alternative fuels are solar, wind and tidal power, hydrogen, air engine power, and non-conventional oil. Since mankind discovered fire, wood has been the first biofuel used for heating and cooking which has also been used to produce electricity, and liquid biofuel have been used in the automotive industry since its inception. Unlike fossil fuels, which are necessarily derived from long deceased and metamorphosed biological organisms, biofuels (otherwise known as agrofuels) are obtained from only recently deceased or from living biological organisms, or in other words, derived from biomass or bio-waste.

      When raw biomass is already in a suitable form (such as firewood), it can be combusted directly in a stove or furnace to provide heat or (industrially) to raise steam. When raw biomass is in an inconvenient form (such as sawdust, wood chips, grass, urban waste wood, and agricultural residues), the typical process is to densify the biomass. This process includes grinding the raw biomass to an appropriate particulate size, which depending on the densification type can be from 0.5 to 1.5 in., which is then concentrated into a fuel product. The current types of processes are pellet, cube, or puck. The pellet process is most common in Europe and is typically a pure wood product. The other types of densification are larger in size compared to a pellet and are compatible with a broad range of input feed-stocks. The resulting densified fuel is easier transport and feed into thermal generation systems such as boilers.

Bioprocessing routes have a number of compelling advantages over conventional petrochemicals production (Table B-9). However, it is only in the last decade that rapid progress in biotechnology has facilitated the commercialization of a number of plant-based chemical processes.

Table B-9 Example of sources and use of biomass for energy products.

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