Keynote Talk: Biofuels and Biorefineries for Energy and Environmental Sustainability

Waste-to-energy concept has gained much momentum in recent years as on one hand, it offers unique opportunity to handle and dispose solid wastes (municipal waste as well as agro-industrial wastes), and simultaneously provides alternative sources of renewable energy. Solid waste treatment and management is a major issue worldwide. Several countries lack proper basic waste management infrastructure and awareness. Thus, waste-to-energy could be an attractive solution for resource recovery, which eventually offers potential benefits when works on principles of biorefinery. A biorefinery is a facility that integrates biomass conversion processes and equipment to produce bio-products, including biofuels and chemicals. It is analogous to today's petroleum refinery. By producing several products, a biorefinery takes the advantages of various components present in the biomass and their intermediates, therefore maximizing the value derived from the biomass feedstock. They also help in complete or near-complete utilization of the feedstock and reduction in solid, liquid or gaseous wastes.

Lignocellulosic biomass-based research has extensively progressed for the production of value-added products and biofuels. Potential application of such biomasses for the production of liquid and gaseous biofuels and other products on principle of biorefineries has gained more attention for possibilities of bioethanol, biobutanol, biodiesel and other high-value chemicals production, coupled with industrial wastewater treatment. Two major pathways for these include thermo-chemical conversion and biochemical conversion. However, process integration is key for the techno-economic success.

The lecture will discuss the issues and perspectives, with specific to Indian scenario.