ABSTRACT
With the ever-increasing human population and the ever-diminishing petroleum-based energy resources, energy security, food security, and environmental issues such as global warming, greenhouse gas emissions, and climate change have become a significant public concern in recent decades and bioenergy and biofuels have emerged as the potential key resources to address these concerns. However, as Hill et al. (2006) note, an optimal set of bioenergy and biofuels should “provide a net energy gain, have environmental benefits, be economically competitive, and be producible in large quantities without risking food security.” This paper presents data on the scientometric overview of the research on bioenergy and biofuels as well as the data on 50 citation classics in this research field and discusses the current emerging issues from an interdisciplinary perspective building on the recent pioneering scientometric studies in this field. The paper provides the base for the structure of the book in the lines of bioenergy and biofuels in general, liquid biofuels, gaseous biofuels, solid biofuels, and bioenergy (microbial fuel cells for bioremediation and bioelectricity production). There were more than 106,000 articles and reviews published in English between 1980 and April 2017, of which 60.4% were published recently in the 2010s, and the annual research output rose over 11,000 papers. The bulk of the citation classics (72%) were in biofuels in general terms and liquid biofuels. The paper concludes that these scientometric studies provide valuable insights for the stakeholders on the current state of the research in bioenergy and biofuels, highlighting the primary players such as authors, institutions, countries, grant bodies, and journals as well as highlighting influential papers significantly impacting the development of the research in their respective research streams. Further research as well as more detailed studies are recommended on the research streams identified in this paper.
