Second-generation biofuels

Summary

Second-generation biofuels, also known as advanced biofuels, are fuels that can be manufactured from various types of non-food biomass. Biomass in this context means plant materials and animal waste used especially as a source of fuel. First-generation biofuels are made from sugar-starch feedstocks (e.g., sugarcane and corn) and edible oil feedstocks (e.g., rapeseed and soybean oil), which are generally converted into bioethanol and biodiesel, respectively. Second-generation biofuels are made from different feedstocks and therefore may require different technology to extract useful energy from them. Second generation feedstocks include lignocellulosic biomass or woody crops, agricultural residues or waste, as well as dedicated non-food energy crops grown on marginal land unsuitable for food production. The term second-generation biofuels is used loosely to describe both the 'advanced' technology used to process feedstocks into biofuel, but also the use of non-food crops, biomass and wastes as feedstocks in 'standard' biofuels processing technologies if suitable. This causes some considerable confusion. Therefore it is important to distinguish between second-generation feedstocks and second-generation biofuel processing technologies. The development of second-generation biofuels has seen a stimulus since the food vs. fuel dilemma regarding the risk of diverting farmland or crops for biofuels production to the detriment of food supply. The biofuel and food price debate involves wide-ranging views, and is a long-standing, controversial one in the literature. Second-generation biofuel technologies have been developed to enable the use of non-food biofuel feedstocks because of concerns to food security caused by the use of food crops for the production of first-generation biofuels. The diversion of edible food biomass to the production of biofuels could theoretically result in competition with food and land uses for food crops. First-generation bioethanol is produced by fermenting plant-derived sugars to ethanol, using a similar process to that used in beer and wine-making (see Ethanol fermentation).

Official source

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-generation_biofuels

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Related publications (5)

Related people (4)

Related units (1)

Related concepts (14)

Related courses (3)

Related lectures (33)

Life cycle assessment of bio-based synthetic fibers: the case of polyester substitutes

Tijana Ivanovic

Numerous studies have shown that the textile sector has a high fossil-fuel dependency, emits excessive amount of greenhouse gases and uses vast amount of water. Currently, polyester (fossil-based) makes up about a half of the industry's fiber production and the volumes are expected to increase. Polyester fiber is traditionally made out of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) polymer. In order to break from the fossil-fuel dependency, textile industry has the possibility to use alternative feedstock for the polyester by reverting to bio-sourcing – strategy where the product's carbon backbone comes partially or fully from the bio-based feedstock. The polyester fiber can be entirely substituted in its current uses by three such bio-based substitutes: bio-based PET fiber as a drop-in substitute (chemically identical to the fossil counterpart); polytrimethylene terephthalate (PTT) fiber as an intra-family substitute with properties comparable to PET fiber and nylon; and polylactic acid (PLA) fiber as a novel fiber without a fossil counterpart and with properties comparable to PET fiber. All of these fibers are produced from the homonymous polymers via melt spinning and their carbon backbone comes partially or entirely from bio-based feedstock. The environmental effects of this feedstock substitution have not been studied abundantly, in spite of the existing political will to prioritize bio-based products, e.g. as the European Green Deal does. This project therefore performs a comparative, cradle-to-gate life cycle assessment of the conventional polyester fiber and these substitutes taking into account state-of-the-art production process. In order to do so Life cycle inventories (LCI) were modelled for 6 different scenarios for bio-based PET, 2 for bio-based PTT and 1 for PLA and were based on public literature and ecoInvent data. Impact assessment was performed by applying two methods – Swiss Ecological Scarcity and European Environmental Footprint, representative of the Swiss environmental policy and of a more scientific classification of environmental and health impacts respectively. The study finds that all three bio-based fibers are produced from the first-generation feedstock (crops). Currently, only the partially bio-based PET and PTT polymers are commercialized, such that the prevailing monomer, purified terephthalic acid (PTA) remains fossil-based for both. Then, monoethylene glycol (MEG) is produced from sugarcane or corn and 1,3-propanediol (PDO) from corn respectively. PLA is a fully bio-based polymer, produced from corn. Bio-sourcing for polyester is found to offer a limited improvement in a small number of impacts (with negligible contribution to the overall score) while causing substantial additional environmental burdens elsewhere (per kg of fiber). Namely, none of the bio-based alternatives perform better than the fossil-based PET fiber on the overall score. However, the partially bio-based PTT fiber may be a viable substitute for nylon (based on lower overall score). In the absence of carbon crediting for bio-based feedstock, climate impacts are found to be worse for the alternatives than the conventional polyester. Eutrophication, acidification, water scarcity impacts and land use rise with fiber's bio-content and largely stem for the agricultural practices (up to 88%, 74%, 97% and 100% respectively). It was also seen that PTA necessitates more precise modeling to raise the certainty of conclusions for the respective fully bio-based PET and PTT scenarios. At this stage, bio-based alternatives have a worse environmental performance than fossil-based polyester. The environmental performance of the bio-based fibers may be increased with alternative feedstock options or with improved agricultural practices.

2020

, , ,

The conversion of sugarcane, the world's largest crop, to energy vectors, namely first and second-generation ethanol and electricity, is an ongoing scientific endeavor. This conversion makes use of complex processes with numerous unit operations and process blocks addressed in literature. Such processes have also been the subject of detailed thermo-economic and techno-economic evaluations as well as the application of systematic methodologies involving simulation, heat integration, optimization and selection. Key works related to this field are discussed in this review along with their hypotheses and results. The main future technologies are also presented. This review is realized to provide the scientific community with accessible references, information and ideas that will ultimately help researchers build consolidated and optimal designs for this process.

2018

Review of design works for the conversion of sugarcane to first and second-generation ethanol and electricity

François Maréchal, Adriano Viana Ensinas, Rami Bechara, Jean-Marc Schweitzer

2018