Features

• Focuses on the importance of developing biological and sustainable technologies for fuels and commodity chemicals to reduce the present dependency on petroleum and petrochemicals
• Assesses information from around the world to present an accurate picture of the biofuels movement, its successes, its historical failures, and its achievable goals within the next few decades
• Evaluates industrial processes for large-scale commercial production of ethanol from monocultures and agricultural waste products
• Provides an account of state-of-the-art advances, including biobutanol and biohydrogen
• Places biofuels in their historical context by discussing the emergence of bioethanol
• Explains how to minimize the potential social and environmental damages resulting from the production of feedstocks on large areas of cultivatable land

Summary

Evaluating a wealth of quantitative data, Biofuels: Biotechnology, Chemistry, and Sustainable Development discusses different types of biofuels, the science behind their production, the economics of their introduction to the marketplace, their environmental impacts, and their implications for world agriculture. It broadens the discussion on biofuels beyond bioethanol and biodiesel, taking into account the data, ideas, and bioproducts that have appeared over the last fifty years.

An Insider’s Look at the Biotech Industry

Written by a seasoned expert in the biotech industry, the book analyzes in detail the present status and future prospects of biofuels, from ethanol and biodiesel to biotechnological routes to biohydrogen. It emphasizes the ways biotechnology can improve process economics as well as facilitate sustainable agroindustries and crucial elements of a biobased economy. The author also explores the additional innovations required in microbial and plant biotechnology, metabolic engineering, bioreactor design, and the genetic manipulation of novel biomass species of plants, such as softwoods and algae.

The Role of Biofuels in the Future

With over 1,000 references and nearly 200 graphs and tables of data, this well-researched, comprehensive work examines the past and present of various biofuels while considering the future of a biocommodity economy.