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Techno-Economic Analysis of Second-Generation Biofuel Technologies

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Bioprocessing for Biofuel Production

Part of the book series: Clean Energy Production Technologies ((CEPT))

Abstract

The ever-increasing environmental concerns and fuel demands along with population rise have prompted for better and efficient technologies for biofuel production. The second-generation biofuel technologies come to rescue the agricultural waste in the form of lignocellulosic biomass to convert it into fuels. The problem is with the efficiency with which they are produced. The techno-economic assessment gives somewhat precise estimate about the production efficiency of the technologies. In the present chapter, the techno-economic assessment studies of different second-generation biofuel technologies covering the pre-treatment, hydrolysis, and fermentation steps are summarized. The thermochemical conversion of the biomass has been discussed in short along with its techno-economic assessment analysis. In thermochemical conversion technologies, syngas to distillates has become an outdated technology, which is preceded by other gasification technologies such as flash pyrolysis and advanced Fischer–Tropsch reactions. In the pre-treatment of biomass technologies, the diluted acid pre-treatment is the most favored type of pre-treatment adopted for the conversion of biomass. The other technologies such as SO2 pre-treatment technologies ultimately mark a higher price of the product as the charges for storage and transportation of gas has become costly. In the hydrolysis step, the simultaneous saccharification fermentation holds the advantage for being economically efficient, but as for industrial use the separate hydrolysis and fermentation holds the upper hand. The major problem arising with the former is the control of optimized conditions with hydrolysis requiring higher temperature relative to fermentation. This book chapter also covers literature surveys of different topics related to techno-economic assessment of second-generation biofuel technologies through Web of Science. Although the research on literature of all the topics concerned was performed, only results with substantial publications are presented.

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Acknowledgments

Authors are thankful to Head and Director of Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development, Banaras Hindu University, for providing lab facility for research and development. SS is highly grateful to the UGC (University Grants Commission) for providing the Junior Research Fellowship to carry out the research work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India

    Saurabh Singh, Akhilesh Kumar & Jay Prakash Verma

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  1. Saurabh Singh
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  2. Akhilesh Kumar
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  3. Jay Prakash Verma
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jay Prakash Verma .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering & Technology, IIT (BHU) Varanasi, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India

    Neha Srivastava

  2. Department of Physics & Astrophysics, University of Delhi, Delhi, Delhi, India

    Manish Srivastava

  3. Department of Chemical Engineering & Technology, IIT (BHU) Varanasi, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India

    P.K. Mishra

  4. Department of Chemistry and Biotechnology, Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia

    Vijai Kumar Gupta

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Singh, S., Kumar, A., Verma, J.P. (2021). Techno-Economic Analysis of Second-Generation Biofuel Technologies. In: Srivastava, N., Srivastava, M., Mishra, P., Gupta, V.K. (eds) Bioprocessing for Biofuel Production. Clean Energy Production Technologies. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7070-4_7

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