Biofuels - Challenges & chances: How biofuel development can benefit from advanced process technology

Abstract

The presented article highlights the process of biofuel production with a special focus on bioethanol. After a short introduction to the "problems" of biofuels - the "first generation" biofuels (in regards to their competition to feed and food production) and the "second generation" biofuels (in regards to the required more complex process technology) - the different steps in the process from natural resources towards the final product are presented and the underlying biotechnological challenges discussed: the pre-treatment of the natural resources followed by the biotechnological processes of hydrolysis and fermentation. Topics such as enzyme screening for efficient or even multi-step hydrolysis as well as microbial strain selection under process conditions and the optimization of the anaerobic fermentative conversion of the saccharides to bioethanol are discussed. Optimizing the production of bioethanol to be competitive with petrochemical fuels is the main challenge for the underlying process development. © 2009 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.