Bioresources and biofuels�From classical to perspectives and trends

This chapter provides perspective on �Bioresources and Biofuels� based on three platforms of bioresource feedstock, i.e., amorphous sugar, lipid, and lignocellulosics. A comprehensive scheme of various possibilities of biofuel production in the three platforms of feedstock that are already commercialized or under development is proposed. At present, only lipid platform dominates the production of �drop-in� biofuel in large volume. However, a coming electric vehicle revolution, disruptive technology, could be a threat to biofuel industries either electricity is produced from renewable energy or having carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) or not. Different alleviation approaches are discussed, for examples (1) shifting from ethanol to �Alcohol to jet, AtJ� or �Direct sugar to hydrocarbon, DSHC� in the amorphous sugar platform; (2) shifting from biodiesel or even bio-hydrotreated diesel (BHD) (also called Hydrogenated Esters and Fatty Acids, HEFA) to HEFA�Synthetic Paraffinic Kerosene (HEFA-SPK) in the lipid platform; and (3) shifting from Fischer-Tropsch (FT) to FT-Synthetic Paraffinic Kerosene (FT-SPK) and FT-SPK with Aromatics (FT-SPK/A) in the lignocellulosic biomass platform. Another interesting choice is on biofuel allocation to produce hydrogen and hydrogen carrier fuel for state-of-the-art fuel cell vehicle application. Last but not least, by using biorefinery concept, lipid/oleochemical biorefinery is specially emphasized and some current typical technologies such as fatty acid methyl ester biodiesel as well as coproduct glycerol should be shifted to more valuable oleochemicals are also mentioned in this chapter. Obviously, economic viability for biofuels and oleochemicals production is still a challenge today. Process intensification which aims to improve process performance substantially (with respect to equipment size, time, energy, etc.) is encouraged and illustrated as an example along the chapter. © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.