Biofuels

This book “Biofuels - A Promising alternate for next generation fuels” deals with the production of biofuels. The term biofuel is referred to as liquid or gaseous fuels for the transport sector that are predominantly produced from biomass. There are several reasons for biofuels to be considered as relevant technologies by both developing and industrialized countries. They include energy security reasons environmental concerns foreign exchange savings and socioeconomic issues related to the rural sector. Biomass can be converted to biofuels through various methods like chemical such as biomethanol and biodiesel production thermochemical such as bio-oil bio-syngas biohydrogen production and biochemical such as bioethanol biogas biodiesel and biohydrogen production. As a renewable resource biomass represents a potentially inexhaustible supply of feedstock for methanol production. Biomethanol can be produced from biomass using bio-sythetic gas. Biodiesel is an environmental friendly alternative liquid fuel that can be used in any diesel engine without modification. There has been renewed interest in the use of vegetable oils for making biodiesel due to its less polluting and renewable nature as against the conventional petroleum diesel fuel. This book on biofuels would definitely benefit the undergraduate postgraduate and research students in the field of environmental engineering chemical engineering and biotechnology.