Biorefinery Production of Fuels and Platform Chemicals

1Biofuels: Classification, Conversion Technologies, Optimization Techniques and Applications

Sakthivel R¹*, Abbhijith H¹, Harshini G V¹, Musunuri Shanmukha Vardhan¹ and Krushna Prasad Shadangi²

¹Department of Mechanical Engineering,Amrita School of Engineering, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore, India

²Department of Chemical Engineering, Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology, Burla, Odisha, India

Abstract

To combat climate change, many researchers over the past few decades have focused their attention towards adopting and studying biofuels that could not just cause fewer toxic emissions compared to conventional petroleum-based fuel, but are also being generated from a myriad of plant waste, animal waste, etc. In this chapter, the primary study is focused on the classification of biofuels: 1^st gen, 2^nd gen, and 3^rd gen biofuels. Then, different conversion technologies, such as pyrolysis, gasification, hydrothermal processes, and transesterification, which are commonly used in industries and labs to obtain biofuels from a plethora of biomass are studied in detail. After obtaining the biofuel from any one of the aforementioned conversion technologies, they could be used as an alternative power source and studied for emission and performance characteristics. However, to determine the optimal results, a suitable optimization technique would have to be employed. In this chapter, two such optimization techniques, namely Response Surface Methodology and Genetic Algorithm, ...