Harnessing the potential of bio‐ethanol production from lignocellulosic biomass in Nigeria – a review

Abstract

The need to diversify energy sources and to change from the present non‐renewable hydrocarbon sources to renewable energy sources has prompted huge investments in research activities to produce bioethanol from carbohydrate‐rich foodstuffs such as cassava tuber, sugarcane molasses, yam tubers, rice grains, corn grains, and a host of others. In recent times, however, more attention has been given to producing bioethanol from the non‐edible parts of carbohydrate‐rich foodstuffs, which are obtained mainly as waste products from food‐crop processing. Such non‐edible components include peels, bagasse, straw, stalk, and cobs. The most important component of the biomass is lignocellulose, which is broken down into carbohydrates and then fermented. The major challenge in deploying biomass as feedstock for bioethanol production is the fact that lignocellulosic biomass is highly recalcitrant and therefore requires more vigorous pretreatment prior to saccharification and fermentation. The main techniques used for pretreating lignocellulosic materials are physical and thermal as well as chemical and biological methods. In Nigeria, lignocellulosic bioethanol production potential from agricultural residues amounts to about 7.556 × 109 L per annum with more than 62% generated from process residues. Cassava biomass alone can produce more than 114 L of bioethanol for every ton of cassava peels after processing. Nigeria has more than enough agricultural residues for bioethanol production to meet its sustainable bioethanol‐blending demands. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

What Has Been the Focus of Sugarcane Research? A Bibliometric Overview

“…This has been an important debate among researchers, generating many publications oriented towards the demonstration of its technical and economic viability for promising new raw materials, e.g., microalgae [60] or alternative energy sources, as well as the way to process them and the technology developed to that end, representing a threat for sugarcane based energy production. In addition, this has been an important debate for other countries that have followed this line of production, e.g., India [61], the Philippines [62], Nigeria [63], Mexico [64], and Thailand [65].…”

Towards Commercialization of Third‐Generation Biofuel Industry for Sustainable Energy Production in Nigeria

“…Biofuel production in Nigeria is still largely 1stG and 2ndG based and the supply of the raw materials are from food crops such as cassava and sugarcane [15,[193][194][195] making it unsustainable due to competition with edible food. Biofuel production requires huge investments and therefore needs assessment on a pilot scale before heavy investment for commercial production [196,197].…”

Experimental determination of the effects of pretreatment on selected Nigerian lignocellulosic biomass in bioethanol production

“…Bioethanol produced from lignocellulosic biomass has been established to be a good alternative to fuels produced from fossil fuels. Examples of lignocellulosic biomass from which bioethanol can be produced include corn cobs, rice husks, cassava peels, yam peels, mango peels, sorghum straw, pineapple peels, potatoes peels, pawpaw peels, sugar cane bagasse among others 5 . Significant research is ongoing globally to develop industrial processes for bioethanol production from lignocellulosic biomass 6 .…”