The new forestry biofuels sector

Abstract

Society's increasing demand for transportation fuels has assured a viable future for the development of renewable fuels. Although fi rst-generation biofuels are dependent on starches, sugars and vegetable oils, the need to generate higher volumes of biofuels at lower cost has shifted the research focus to cellulosic ethanol. The utilization of lignocellulosics for the sustainable manufacturing of biofuels is critically dependent on the chemical constituents of the starting biomass and the desired fuel properties. This review examines the major chemical constituents of biomass and the recent advances in their conversion to biofuels, with a special emphasis on the forest residues and woody-energy crops to bioethanol.

Unpacking resource mobilisation by incumbents for biorefineries: the role of micro-level factors for technological innovation system weaknesses

“…Following the IEA (2009, 2) we define biorefineries as 'the sustainable processing of biomass into a spectrum of marketable products (food, feed, materials and chemicals) and energy (fuels, power and heat).' Studies underline that biorefining is particularly relevant to the pulp and paper industry in its efforts to extract and appropriate greater value from biomass (Stuart 2006;Pu et al 2008). Instead of using the forest biomass exclusively for the production of pulp and paper, biorefining allows for biomass conversion into products such as lowcarbon fuels (e.g.…”

Structural Characterization of Lignin in Wild-Type versus COMT Down-Regulated Switchgrass

“…Although lignocellulosic resources, such as energy crops and agricultural and forest residues, are readily becoming available for bioethanol production, their processing requires a costly pretreatment step to overcome their natural recalcitrance toward biological deconstruction to simple sugars (Sun and Cheng, 2002;Himmel et al, 2007;Pu et al, 2008;Somerville et al, 2010). Lignocellulosic biomass is a complex composite consisting primarily of three biopolymers (i.e., cellulose, hemicelluloses, and lignin) and its recalcitrance has been attributed to several factors such as cellulose accessibility to enzymes, lignin content/structure, lignincarbohydrate complexes, as well as the presence and structure of hemicelluloses (Wyman et al, 2005;Li et al, 2012;Leu and Zhu, 2013;Pu et al, 2013).…”

Transformation of Sorbitol to Biofuels by Heterogeneous Catalysis: Chemical and Industrial Considerations

“…Lignocellulose is derived from agricultural residues (straw, bagasse, etc. ), forestry waste, industrial by-products (from the paper industry, in particular) or even high annual-yield dedicated crops such as Miscanthus (a herbaceous plant) or Short Rotation Coppices (SRC, meaning small woods regularly cut over for regrowth) [6]. It has several advantages: it could be available at low cost; it could bypass the food/energy conflict for farms and can be produced nearly anywhere, thus allowing the creation of biorefineries supplied with local resources.…”