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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.
Cellulosic ethanol is ethanol produced from cellulose rather than from the plant's seeds or fruit. It can be produced from grasses, wood, algae, or other plants. It is generally discussed for use as a biofuel. The carbon dioxide that plants absorb as they grow offsets some of the carbon dioxide emitted when ethanol made from them is burned, so cellulosic ethanol fuel has the potential to have a lower carbon footprint than fossil fuels.
Various alcohols are used as fuel for internal combustion engines. The first four aliphatic alcohols are of interest as fuels because they can be synthesized chemically or biologically, and they have characteristics which allow them to be used in internal combustion engines. The general chemical formula for alcohol fuel is CnH2n+1OH.
The United States became the world's largest producer of ethanol fuel in 2005. The U.S. produced 15.8 billion U.S. liquid gallons of ethanol fuel in 2019, and 13.9 billion U.S. liquid gallons in 2011, an increase from 13.2 billion U.S. liquid gallons in 2010, and up from 1.63 billion gallons in 2000. Brazil and U.S. production accounted for 87.1% of global production in 2011. In the U.S, ethanol fuel is mainly used as an oxygenate in gasoline in the form of low-level blends up to 10 percent, and, increasingly, as E85 fuel for flex-fuel vehicles. The U.S. government subsidizes ethanol production.
The United States produces mainly biodiesel and ethanol fuel, which uses corn as the main feedstock. The US is the world's largest producer of ethanol, having produced nearly 16 billion gallons in 2017 alone. The United States, together with Brazil accounted for 85 percent of all ethanol production, with total world production of 27.05 billion gallons. Biodiesel is commercially available in most oilseed-producing states. As of 2005, it was somewhat more expensive than fossil diesel, though it is still commonly produced in relatively small quantities.
Renewable Fuels are fuels produced from renewable resources. Examples include: biofuels, Hydrogen fuel, and fully synthetic fuel produced from ambient carbon dioxide and water. This is in contrast to non-renewable fuels such as natural gas, LPG (propane), petroleum and other fossil fuels and nuclear energy. Renewable fuels can include fuels that are synthesized from renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar. Renewable fuels have gained in popularity due to their sustainability, low contributions to the carbon cycle, and in some cases lower amounts of greenhouse gases. The geo-political ramifications of these fuels are also of interest, particularly to industrialized economies which desire independence from Middle Eastern oil.
According to data from the US Energy Information Administration, renewable energy accounted for 8.4% of total primary energy production and 21% of total utility-scale electricity generation in the United States in 2022.
Acetone–butanol–ethanol (ABE) fermentation, also known as the Weizmann process, is a process that uses bacterial fermentation to produce acetone, n-butanol, and ethanol from carbohydrates such as starch and glucose. It was developed by chemist Chaim Weizmann and was the primary process used to produce acetone, which was needed to make cordite, a substance essential for the British war industry during World War I.
Edith Marie Flanigen is a noted American chemist, known for her work on synthesis of emeralds, and later zeolites for molecular sieves at Union Carbide.
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.
Frances Hamilton Arnold is an American chemical engineer and Nobel Laureate. She is the Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). In 2018, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for pioneering the use of directed evolution to engineer enzymes.
Mascoma Corporation was a U.S. biofuel company founded to produce cellulosic ethanol made from wood and switchgrass. Headquartered in Lebanon, New Hampshire, the company was founded in 2005 by Robert Johnsen (CEO), Lee Lynd and Charles Wyman, two professors from Dartmouth College. The company was named after Mascoma Lake, which is near Lebanon. In November 2014, the yeast-related business assets including the Mascoma name were purchased by Lallemand, Inc. of Montreal, Canada. The R&D facility in Lebanon, NH was renamed Mascoma LLC which is now a subsidiary of Lallemand. The remaining business assets of the former Mascoma Corp. including the thermophilic bacteria technology, pilot plant in Rome, NY, and former headquarters in Waltham, MA were renamed Enchi Corporation.
A low-carbon fuel standard (LCFS) is an emissions trading rule designed to reduce the average carbon intensity of transportation fuels in a given jurisdiction, as compared to conventional petroleum fuels, such as gasoline and diesel. The most common methods for reducing transportation carbon emissions are supplying electricity to electric vehicles, supplying hydrogen fuel to fuel cell vehicles and blending biofuels, such as ethanol, biodiesel, renewable diesel, and renewable natural gas into fossil fuels. The main purpose of a low-carbon fuel standard is to decrease carbon dioxide emissions associated with vehicles powered by various types of internal combustion engines while also considering the entire life cycle, in order to reduce the carbon footprint of transportation.
The indirect land use change impacts of biofuels, also known as ILUC or iLUC, relates to the unintended consequence of releasing more carbon emissions due to land-use changes around the world induced by the expansion of croplands for ethanol or biodiesel production in response to the increased global demand for biofuels.
The fleet of flexible-fuel vehicles in the United States is the second largest in the world after Brazil, and there were more than 21 million 85 flex-fuel vehicles registered in the country by the end of 2017. Despite the growing fleet of E85 flex-fuel vehicles, actual use of ethanol fuel is limited due to the lack of E85 refueling infrastructure and also because many North American flex-fuel car owners were not aware they owned an E85 flex-fuel vehicle. Flex-fuel vehicles are common in the Midwest, where corn is a major crop and is the primary feedstock for ethanol fuel production. Also the U.S. government has been using flex-fuel vehicles for many years.
The world's top ethanol fuel producers in 2011 were the United States with 13.9 billion U.S. liquid gallons (bg) and Brazil with 5.6 bg, accounting together for 87.1% of world production of 22.36 billion US gallons. Strong incentives, coupled with other industry development initiatives, are giving rise to fledgling ethanol industries in countries such as Germany, Spain, France, Sweden, India, China, Thailand, Canada, Colombia, Australia, and some Central American countries.
Enerkem is a clean technology company based in Montreal. Founded in 2000, Enerkem uses its patented technology to convert residual biomass and non-recyclable municipal solid waste (MSW) into biofuels and renewable chemicals.
Johannes "Hans" van Leeuwen is educator, engineer, inventor, researcher, and entrepreneur. He is an emeritus professor of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering at Iowa State University and an entrepreneur in ethanol co-product development. His research and innovations have worked to solve various problems including, new water purification methods, a way of creating food and animal feed from waste, and a process in making the purest alcohol ever made.
Jens Nielsen is the CEO of BioInnovation Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark, and professor of systems biology at Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden. He is also an adjunct professor at the Technical University of Denmark. Nielsen is the most cited researcher in the field of metabolic engineering, and he is the founding president of the International Metabolic Engineering Society. He has additionally founded several biotech companies.
James C. Liao is the Parsons Foundation Professor and Chair of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles and is the co-founder and lead scientific advisor of Easel Biotechnologies, LLC.
References
- ↑ "National Science and Technology Medals Foundation". nationalmedals.org. Retrieved 2018-09-28.
- ↑ "Obama honors Purdue professor with technology medal". indystar.com. Retrieved 2018-09-28.
- ↑ "2013 Laureates- National Medal of Technology and Innovation". USPTO. Retrieved 2018-09-28.
- 1 2 3 Lane, Jim (January 20, 2015). "Dr. Nancy Ho, Founder, Green Tech America". biofuelsdigest.com. Retrieved December 13, 2018.
- ↑ "Nancy Ho Chosen to Receive the National Medal of Technology and Innovation : Women In Academia Report". wiareport.com. 31 December 2015. Retrieved 2018-09-28.
- ↑ "1015. Nancy Ho / 何汪瑗 2016/05 | History of Taiwanese American (T.A. Archives) 台美史料中心". taiwaneseamericanhistory.org. 26 May 2016. Retrieved 2018-09-28.
- ↑ "Nancy W. Y. Ho". Purdue.edu. Retrieved December 12, 2018.
- ↑ "Purdue engineer receives top award from President Obama - Purdue University". purdue.edu. Retrieved 2018-09-28.
- ↑ The Miracle Yeast: Amazon.es: Nancy W. Y. Ho: Libros en idiomas extranjeros. ASIN 1489719296.