There is currently much interest in producing biofuel-based transportation fuels. However, since biofuel is a limited renewable resource, it is important to assess whether such fuels are both produced and used as efficiently as possible. Efficient production can be achieved in the future by integrated biorefinery operations at pulp mill sites, co-producing pulp and biofuel-based energy products...

In 2006, the journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics published a special issue devoted exclusively to biofuel cells, including several research papers and an extensive review of the field [Bullen, R.A., Arnot, T.C., Lakeman, J.B., Walsh, F.C., 2006. Biosens. Bioelectron.]. Within this review a brief description will firstly be given of the history of biofuel cells together with coverage of some o...

Despite the economic importance of grasses as food, feed, and energy crops, little is known about the genes that control their cell wall synthesis, assembly, and remodelling. Here a detailed transcriptome analysis that allowed the identification of genes involved in grass cell wall biogenesis is provided. Differential gene expression profiling, using maize oligonucleotide arrays, was used to id...

Enzymatic biofuel cells have many great usages as a small power source for medical and environmental applications. In this paper, we employed carboxylated multiwall carbon nanotube- (1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium bis (trifluoromethyl sulfonyl) imide) ionic liquid nanocomposite on two different electrodes (glassy carbon and carbon felt) for immobilizing alcohol dehydrogenase. The properties of the...

1984 Methane (CH4) and ammonia (NH3) are emitted to the atmosphere during anaerobic processing of organic matter, and both gases have detrimental environmental eff ects. Methane conversion to biofuel production has been suggested to reduce CH4 emissions from animal manure processing systems. Th e purpose of this research is to evaluate the change in CH4 and NH3 emissions in an animal feeding op...

The temperature of the coolant is known to have significant influence on engine performance and emissions. Whereas existing literature describes the effects of coolant temperature in engines using fossil derived fuels, very few studies have investigated these effects when biofuel is used. In this study, Jatropha oil was blended separately with ethanol and butanol. It was found that the 80% jatr...

In this paper we use the CGE model DART to assess the economic impacts and optimality of the different aspects of the EU climate package. A special focus is placed on the 10% biofuel target in the EU. In particular we analyze the development in the biofuel sectors, the effects on agricultural production and prices and finally overall welfare implications. The main findings include that the EU e...

We assessed the potential impacts of land-use changes resulting from a change in the current biofuel policy on biodiversity in Europe. We evaluated the possible impact of both arable and woody biofuel crops on changes in distribution of 313 species pertaining to different taxonomic groups. Using species-specific information on habitat suitability as well as land use simulations for three differ...

Adapted from the author’s paper “How good enough biofuel governance can help rural livelihoods: making sure that biofuel development works for small farmers and communities”, an unpublished background paper for FAO’s State of Food and Agriculture 2008. Some suggestions on how to achieve biofuel development that favours sustainable rural livelihoods. The quest for sustainable biofuel systems has...

BACKGROUND A major hindrance to the development of high yielding biofuel feedstocks is the ability to rapidly assess large populations for fermentable sugar yields. Whilst recent advances have outlined methods for the rapid assessment of biomass saccharification efficiency, none take into account the total biomass, or the soluble sugar fraction of the plant. Here we present a holistic high-thro...