Biofuel is a fuel that is produced over a short time span from biomass, rather than by the very slow natural processes involved in the formation of fossil fuels such as oil. Biofuel can be produced from plants or from agricultural, domestic or industrial biowaste. Biofuels are mostly used for transportation, but can also be used for heating and electricity. Biofuels are regarded as a renewable energy source. The use of biofuel has been subject to criticism regarding the "food vs fuel" debate, varied assessments of their sustainability, and possible deforestation and biodiversity loss as a result of biofuel production.
A renewable resource is a natural resource which will replenish to replace the portion depleted by usage and consumption, either through natural reproduction or other recurring processes in a finite amount of time in a human time scale. When the recovery rate of resources is unlikely to ever exceed a human time scale, these are called perpetual resources. Renewable resources are a part of Earth's natural environment and the largest components of its ecosphere. A positive life-cycle assessment is a key indicator of a resource's sustainability.
A biorefinery is a refinery that converts biomass to energy and other beneficial byproducts. The International Energy Agency Bioenergy Task 42 defined biorefining as "the sustainable processing of biomass into a spectrum of bio-based products and bioenergy ". As refineries, biorefineries can provide multiple chemicals by fractioning an initial raw material (biomass) into multiple intermediates that can be further converted into value-added products. Each refining phase is also referred to as a "cascading phase". The use of biomass as feedstock can provide a benefit by reducing the impacts on the environment, as lower pollutants emissions and reduction in the emissions of hazard products. In addition, biorefineries are intended to achieve the following goals:
- Supply the current fuels and chemical building blocks
- Supply new building blocks for the production of novel materials with disruptive characteristics
- Creation of new jobs, including rural areas
- Valorization of waste
- Achieve the ultimate goal of reducing GHG emissions
Bioplastics are plastic materials produced from renewable biomass sources, such as vegetable fats and oils, corn starch and rice starch, straw, woodchips, sawdust, recycled food waste, etc. Some bioplastics are obtained by processing directly from natural biopolymers including polysaccharides and proteins, while others are chemically synthesized from sugar derivatives and lipids from either plants or animals, or biologically generated by fermentation of sugars or lipids. In contrast, common plastics, such as fossil-fuel plastics are derived from petroleum or natural gas.
Lignocellulose refers to plant dry matter (biomass), so called lignocellulosic biomass. It is the most abundantly available raw material on the Earth for the production of biofuels. It is composed of two kinds of carbohydrate polymers, cellulose and hemicellulose, and an aromatic-rich polymer called lignin. Any biomass rich in cellulose, hemicelluloses, and lignin are commonly referred to as lignocellulosic biomass. Each component has a distinct chemical behavior. Being a composite of three very different components makes the processing of lignocellulose challenging. The evolved resistance to degradation or even separation is referred to as recalcitrance. Overcoming this recalcitrance to produce useful, high value products requires a combination of heat, chemicals, enzymes, and microorganisms. These carbohydrate-containing polymers contain different sugar monomers and they are covalently bound to lignin.
Biodegradable plastics are plastics that can be decomposed by the action of living organisms, usually microbes, into water, carbon dioxide, and biomass. Biodegradable plastics are commonly produced with renewable raw materials, micro-organisms, petrochemicals, or combinations of all three.
Biobased economy, bioeconomy or biotechonomy is economic activity involving the use of biotechnology and biomass in the production of goods, services, or energy. The terms are widely used by regional development agencies, national and international organizations, and biotechnology companies. They are closely linked to the evolution of the biotechnology industry and the capacity to study, understand, and manipulate genetic material that has been possible due to scientific research and technological development. This includes the application of scientific and technological developments to agriculture, health, chemical, and energy industries.
Upcycling, also known as creative reuse, is the process of transforming by-products, waste materials, useless, or unwanted products into new materials or products perceived to be of greater quality, such as artistic value or environmental value.
Second-generation biofuels, also known as advanced biofuels, are fuels that can be manufactured from various types of non-food biomass. Biomass in this context means plant materials and animal waste used especially as a source of fuel.
Algae fuel, algal biofuel, or algal oil is an alternative to liquid fossil fuels that uses algae as its source of energy-rich oils. Also, algae fuels are an alternative to commonly known biofuel sources, such as corn and sugarcane. When made from seaweed (macroalgae) it can be known as seaweed fuel or seaweed oil.
Hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) is a biofuel made by the hydrocracking or hydrogenation of vegetable oil. Hydrocracking breaks big molecules into smaller ones using hydrogen while hydrogenation adds hydrogen to molecules. These methods can be used to create substitutes for gasoline, diesel, propane, kerosene and other chemical feedstock. Diesel fuel produced from these sources is known as green diesel or renewable diesel.
Biogasoline is a type of gasoline produced from biomass such as algae. Like traditionally produced gasoline, it is made up of hydrocarbons with 6 (hexane) to 12 (dodecane) carbon atoms per molecule and can be used in internal combustion engines. However, unlike traditional gasoline/petroleum based fuels, which are mainly composed from oil, biogasolines are made from plants such as beets and sugarcane or cellulosic biomass- substances normally referred to as plant waste.
The National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, also known as NIMBB, is a research institute of the University of the Philippines (UP). It has four branches distributed across various UP campuses, namely: UP Diliman (NIMBB-Diliman), UP Los Baños (BIOTECH-UPLB), UP Manila and UP Visayas.
Cellana, Inc. is an American company which develops of algae-based bioproducts for high-value nutrition, ink, and bioenergy applications, including Omega-3 nutraceutical applications, sustainable ink, aquaculture and animal feeds, human food ingredients, pigments, specialty chemicals, and biofuels. The company, with offices in Hawaii and San Diego, has received multiple multimillion-dollar grants from the United States Department of Energy and United States Department of Agriculture.
Bioproducts or bio-based products are materials, chemicals and energy derived from renewable biological material.
Biorefining is the process of "building" multiple products from biomass as a feedstock or raw material much like a petroleum refinery that is currently in use.
Bioproducts engineering or bioprocess engineering refers to engineering of bio-products from renewable bioresources. This pertains to the design and development of processes and technologies for the sustainable manufacture of bioproducts from renewable biological resources.
Cellulosic sugars are derived from non-food biomass (e.g. wood, agricultural residues, municipal solid waste). The biomass is primarily composed of carbohydrate polymers cellulose, hemicellulose, and an aromatic polymer (lignin). The hemicellulose is a polymer of mainly five-carbon sugars C5H10O5 (xylose). and the cellulose is a polymer of six-carbon sugar C6H12O6 (glucose). Cellulose fibers are considered to be a plant’s structural building blocks and are tightly bound to lignin, but the biomass can be deconstructed using Acid hydrolysis, enzymatic hydrolysis, organosolv dissolution, autohydrolysis or supercritical hydrolysis. A more recent mechanical method offers hope that at last, a more economic and waste free method has been found although it is still to scale and is not yet commercial.
Synthetic microbial consortia or Synthetic microbial communities are multi-population systems that can contain a diverse range of microbial species, and are adjustable to serve a variety of industrial, ecological, and tautological interests. For synthetic biology, consortia take the ability to engineer novel cell behaviors to a population level.
Catia Bastioli is an Italian researcher, chemist, and entrepreneur. Born in Foligno, she was always interested in chemistry and the natural world. Bastioli went on to attend the Business Management School at Bocconi University and get a degree in chemistry from the University of Perugia. She started her career as a researcher for the largest research group in Italy, Montedison, where she used her chemistry expertise to develop bioplastics with waste and agricultural raw materials. At Montedison, she helped to found a research center that later became Novamont. With this transition to Novemont, Bastioli began focusing on experimenting with eco-friendly materials and bioplastics. Bastioli is CEO of Novamont, as well as President of Terna Spa of the Kyoto Club Association and a member of the Board of Directors of Fondazione Cariplo. She also was the CEO of Matrìca, a joint venture between Novamont and Versalis.
