ABSTRACT
Crude oil-based gasoline fuels have been widely used in the transportation sector since the 1920s. However, there have been great public concerns over the adverse environmental and human impact of these fuels. Hence, biomass-based bioethanol fuels have increasingly been used in blending gasoline fuels, in fuel cells, and in biochemical production in a biorefinery context. However, it is necessary to pretreat the biomass to enhance the yield of the bioethanol prior to bioethanol fuel production from feedstocks through the hydrolysis of the biomass and fermentation of the resulting hydrolysates. One of the most studied feedstocks for bioethanol fuels has been the lignocellulosic biomass at large. Research in the field of lignocellulosic biomass-based bioethanol fuels has intensified in this context in the key research fronts of pretreatment and hydrolysis of the lignocellulosic biomass, and to a lesser extent fermentation of the lignocellulosic biomass-based hydrolysates and production and evaluation of the lignocellulosic biomass-based bioethanol fuels. Thus, it emerges as a distinctive research field, complementing primarily the research on the second generation bioethanol fuels from agricultural residues as well as food, industrial, urban, and forestry wastes among others as well as from grass and wood. However, it is essential to develop efficient incentive structures for the primary stakeholders to enhance the research in this field. Although there have been a number of review papers on the lignocellulosic biomass-based bioethanol fuels, there has been no review of the 25 most cited articles in this field. Thus, this book chapter presents a review of these 25 most cited articles. Then, it discusses the key findings of these highly influential papers and comments on future research priorities in this field.
