Page 16 - Lignocellulosic Biomass to Liquid Biofuels

Preface

Lignocellulosic biomass is a potential source of biofuels, which is abundant
and readily available around the world. Simultaneously, liquid biofuels
have great demand in transportation and industrial sectors. Therefore, this
book particularly focuses on the processing of lignocellulosic biomass to
liquid biofuels. Currently, a growing number of liquid biofuels are evalu-
ated for commercial exploitation, such as bioethanol, biodiesel, methanol,
and reformulated gasoline components. Some technological barriers still
arise in the production of biofuels from lignocellulosic biomass, but robust
research is going on to overcome those obstacles.
At the same time, new routes have been developed to obtain these
biofuels from lignocellulosic materials, involving a wide array of biologi-
cal, chemical, and thermal technologies. This book compiles the state of
the art of those processes.
Chapter 1, Fundamentals of lignocellulosic biomass, describes the fun-
damental structure, chemistry, and biorefinery of lignocellulosic biomass.
To design and develop sustainable technology, it is urgent to understand
the composition, characters, and their refinery process. This chapter also
gives an updated research finding about the source, chemistry, and biore-
finery of this valuable material.
Chapter 2, Pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass for efficient enzy-
matic saccharification of cellulose, explains the methods used for biomass
pretreatment and corresponding action models and mechanism, focusing
on physical, chemical, biological, and combined pretreatments. It criticizes
merits and drawbacks of each pretreatment process in terms of efficiency,
formation of inhibitors to subsequent enzymatic hydrolysis and fermenta-
tion, energy consumption as well as operation costs. The chapter also
recommends further actions to improve the economic feasibility of the
pretreatment processes.
Chapter 3, Bioconversion of lignocellulosic biomass to bioethanol and
biobutanol, describes processes involved both in bioethanol and biobuta-
nol production after a brief introduction on suitable strains and their pro-
ductivity of bioethanol and biobutanol. It emphasizes on simultaneous
saccharification and fermentation, effect of inhibitors on fermentation, and
strategies for minimizing inhibitor effects.

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