ABSTRACT
In recent decades the number of companies working for improvement of the existing technologies of biofuel production or creation of the new technologies has been steadily growing. The different types of biomass and manners of their pretreatment have been tested, as well as the methods of feedstock conversion to biofuels. Taking the type of feedstock and the degree of complexity technology as classification criteria, a rough division of conventional and advanced biofuels can be made (IEA, 2011). The conventional technologies allow to commercially produce first generation biofuels, i.e. sugar-and starch-based ethanol (Gnansounou & Dauriat, 2005; Bai et al., 2008; Canilha et al., 2012), biodiesel produced from vegetable oil (Van Gerpen, 2005; Gupta & Bhojvaid, 2006; Tabatabaei et al., 1999), as well as biogas from silage and agriculture waste (Cave, 2013; Blumenstein et al., 2015). The main disadvantage of the first generation biofuels is the food-versusfuel competition. This is the reason for rising food prices, caused by the increase in the production of these fuels. In order to overcome this problem, non-edible biomass (lignocellulose) can be used as feedstock. In this way the lignocellulosic material offers the potential for the development of novel biofuels, called advanced biofuels (Sims & Taylor, 2008; Sims et al., 2010).
