ABSTRACT
SANNAPANENI JANARDAN,1 B. B. PAVANKUMAR,1 SHIVENDU RANJAN,2 NANDITA DASGUPTA,2 MELVIN SAMUEL,2 CHIDAMBARAM RAMALINGAM,2 AKELLA SIVARAMAKRISHNA,1 and KARI VIJAYAKRISHNA1
1Department of Chemistry, School of Advanced Sciences, VIT University, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India
2School of Bio Sciences and Technology, VIT University, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India
12.1 Introduction ................................................................................ 300 12.2 Methods...................................................................................... 302
12.2.1 Thermochemical Approaches ....................................... 302 12.2.2 Microwave Approach for Biofuel Production .............. 308 12.2.3 Photo-Electrochemical Reactions ................................ 310 12.2.4 Bio-Approaches ........................................................... 312 12.2.5 Catalytic Methods ........................................................ 325
12.3 Conclusions and Future Prospects ............................................. 336 12.4 Acknowledgments ...................................................................... 338 Keywords .............................................................................................. 338 References ............................................................................................. 338
12.1 INTRODUCTION
Since the crude oil resources are finite, there is however an increasing demand for ecofriendly, renewable and sustainable fuels, particularly for the transport purpose. At present, the entire world is looking for alternative, efficient and sustainable energy sources such as solar, wind, hydro, biomass and geothermal energy. The main drawback of these energy sources is that they need to be converted to energy carriers such as electricity, hydrogen or biofuels primarily before considering them to the transport purposes. Among all the energy sources, hydrogen is the ideal fuel for an energy efficient fuel cell with water as a by-product. However, there are several problems associated with conversion and storage of hydrogen gas although the efficiency of catalytic conversion of biomass to hydrogen was substantially improved recently [1, 2]. All these aspects are driving the scientists for the production of liquid biofuels from the biomass.
