Microbes as resource of biomass, bioenergy, and biofuel

Abstract

Alternative fuel and clean energy are a necessity with global warming and fossil fuel exhaustion reaching alarming levels. Biological sources for such energy productions have gained immense interest, as these have shown potential to match the existing energy supplies and cleaner fuel outputs. Technological inventions and scientific findings made in the past decades have helped in the understanding that microbial biomasses as such can be an effective and cheaper energy source. Third generation fuels, which are dominated by algae sourced feeds for fuels has now been expanded with the inclusion of more microbial biomass capable of biofuel or bioenergy generations. Microorganisms ranging from mesophilic bacteria or fungi to extremophilic microbes constitute the new third-generation fuel sources and energy producer. Given this scenario, a thorough investigation into the microbial biomass yield enhancements in correlation to the biofuel generations like biodiesel, bioethanol, biogas, biobutanol, biohydrogen, etc. along with bioenergy from microbial-fuelled cell developments is a necessity. Hence, in this current chapter, we explore the role played by various microbial biomass sources in biofuel and bioenergy production in current scenario and the new advancements made in the field.