Biofuels: An overview

Abstract

Biofuels have a long history but have recently gained increasing attention and demand as a renewable, environmentally friendly, and sustainable energy source. Different kinds of biofuels can easily replace traditional fossil fuels with positive environmental impact and potential for net-zero or even negative carbon emissions. Hence, biofuel is vital for tackling the current global warming crisis, which has resulted from our overreliance on fossil fuels. The varied types and forms of biofuels include liquid fuel (such as bioethanol, biodiesel, and jet fuel), gaseous fuel (such as biogas, biomethane, syngas, and biohydrogen), and solid fuels (such as charcoal, biochar, briquettes, and pellets). Bioelectricity is also introduced briefly as another source of bioenergy. These biofuels are generated from a range of different biomass feedstocks, which are divided into four generations based on their biochemical composition, typical usage, and cultivationmethodologies. This chapter presents an overview of the major aspects of biofuels, including the generations of biomass feedstocks, types of biofuels, and the main conversion technologies applied to generate the biofuels from biomass.