Biomass

Biomass is biological material from living, or recently living organisms, most often referring to plants or plantderived materials. As a renewable energy source, biomass can either be used directly, or indirectlyonce or converted into another type of energy product such as biofuel. Biomass can be converted to energy in three ways: thermal conversion, chemical conversion, and biochemical conversion. Historically, humans have harnessed biomass-derived energy products since the time when people began burning wood to make fire. In modern times, the term can be referred to in two meanings. In the first sense, biomass is plant matter used either to generate electricity (via steam turbines or gasifiers), or to produce heat (via direct combustion). Biomass-derived energy also holds the promise of reducing carbon dioxide emissions, a significant contributor to global warming, as carbon dioxide acts as a greenhouse gas by trapping heat absorbed by the earth from the sun. Although the burning of biomass releases as much carbon dioxide as the burning of fossil fuels, biomass burning does not release new carbon into the atmosphere, which the burning of fossil fuels does. This is because carbon dioxide released from fossil fuels was carbon that was fixated via photosynthesis millions of years ago that had been locked in the hydrocarbons of fossil fuels. Biomass is all biologically-produced matter based in carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. The estimated biomass production in the world is 146 billion tons a year, consisting of mostly wild plant growth.

Based on the source of biomass, biofuels are classified broadly into two major categories. First generation biofuels are derived from sources such as sugarcane and corn starch etc. Sugars present in these biomass are fermented to produce bioethanol, an alcohol fuel. Which can be used directly in a fuel cell to produce electricity or serve as an additive to gasoline. However, utilizing food based resource for fuel production aggravates food shortage problem. Second generation biofuels on the other hand utilize non food based biomass sources such as agriculture and municipal waste. It mostly consists of lignocelluloses biomass which is not edible and is a low value waste for many industries. Despite being the favored alternative economical production of second generation biofuel is not yet achieved due to technological issues. These issues arise mainly due to chemical inertness and structural rigidity of lignocelluloses biomass.

What is lignocellulosic biomass ?

Lignocellulose refers to plant dry matter (biomass), so called lignocellulosic biomass. It is the most abundantly available raw material on the Earth for the production of bio-fuels, mainly bio-ethanol. It is composed of carbohydrate polymers (cellulose, hemicellulose), and an aromatic polymer (lignin). These carbohydrate polymers contain different sugar monomers (six and five carbon sugars) and they are tightly bound to lignin. Lignocellulosic biomass can be broadly classified into virgin biomass, waste biomass and energy crops. Virgin biomass includes all naturally occurring terrestrial plants such as trees, bushes and grass. Waste biomass is produced as a low value byproduct of various industrial sectors such as agricultural (corn stover, sugarcane bagasse, straw etc), forestry (saw mill and paper mill discards). Energy crops are crops with high yield of lignocellulosic biomass produced to serve as a raw material for production of second generation biofuel examples include switch grass (Panicum virgatum) and Elephant grass. Lignocellulosic biomass (or LC biomass) refers to plant biomass that is composed of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. Biomass is increasingly recognized as a valuable commodity, since it is an alternative to petroleum for the production of biofuels and chemicals. Even today, cellulose consumption is threefold higher than that of steel and is equal to that of cereals (Das & Singh, 2004), but its current uses are mainly restricted to the materials sector (wood-based and paper). From an energy point of view lignocellulosic biomass can replace fossil fuels.

What are the sustainable feedstocks for biofuel production? Agricultural residues: corn stover, straw, etc. can be used for production of second generation biofuels. Forestry residues: residues from harvest operations that are left in the forest after stem wood removal, such as branches, foliage, roots, etc. and complementary fellings. Energy Crops: energy crop are specifically bred and cultivated to produce biomass which are used in biorefinery concepts or to release energy either by direct combustion or by biogas. Biowaste streams: municipal solid waste (mainly kitchen and garden waste), packaging waste wood, household waste wood, market waste, food processing wastes etc.