ABSTRACT
In very general terms, biofuels are energy carriers that store energy derived from biomass. Many types of biomass can be used to produce biofuels, including agricultural residues, woods, fibre residues, grasses, as well as food crops. As stipulated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO, 2008), one can distinguish between primary and secondary biofuels. Primary biofuels are essentially raw biomass fuels (such as firewood, wood chips or sawdust pellets) that have undergone no or only minor processing prior to conversion to energy, usually combustion. Secondary biofuels are solid, liquid or gaseous energy carriers (such as charcoal, ethanol, biogas) that are produced after considerable processing of raw biomass. Secondary biofuels can be used for a wider range of applications including transportation and industrial processes. The focus of this chapter is on secondary biofuels that are used in the
transportation sector. The reason for this demarcation is that: (i) recent years have shown a tremendous growth of production and use of biofuels in the transportation sector; and (ii) most transportation biofuels currently in the market are produced by using agricultural and food commodities, which has urged the need to develop and implement new technologies. In this chapter, the secondary biofuels for use in the transportation sector are simply referred to as ‘biofuels’. The aim of this chapter is to describe the production of a number of
promising advanced, lignocellulose-based biofuels and the challenges and developments therein. In addition, the implementation of such advanced biofuels will be described.
