Biofuels

Waste Into Wealth

 

Relevant:-

Outcomes of the studySignificance of the studyAbout Bio fuelsWhat is Bio-Ethanol?

Recently

Recently, scientists from CSIR-NIIST, Thiruvananthapuram turned discarded cotton-stalks into biofuel.

Outcomes of the study

By using the combination of chemical and biological techniques, Scientists have turned discarded cotton-stalks into ethanol, which is obtained by fermentation of plant waste.To convert the glucose into ethanol, fermentation using a novel yeast straine. Saccharomycescerevisiae -RRP-03N, was carried out.

Significance of the study

India has about 9.4 million hectares under cotton cultivation and can use discarded 2 million tones of cotton from every hectare, to generate ethanol.Bio-Ethanol is a conventional fuel, which comes from a renewable resource.India can get rid of the large waste produced by turning it into bio-ethanol.Most of this first generation ethanol finds its way into consumer applications, primarily as liquor. Converting the agro-residues to ethanol reduces the food vs fuel competition

About Bio fuels

These fuels are produced from organic material or biomass, directly or indirectly. This organic material can be plant material, fishery products, municipal wastes, agro waste, food by-products, animal waste etc.Traditionally biomass are being used in villages in the form of cow dung, fuelwood, charcoal, etc but they are unprocessed and not suitable for the environment.Biofuels produces bioenergy, which covers nearly 10% of current total world energy demand.With technological advancement, biofuels can be extracted from wood, crops and waste material and can be in form of solid, liquid or gas.Biofuels are of two types:Primary Biofuels- These are produced by unprocessed organic material like fuelwood, pellets, wood chips etc for primary consumption like cooking, heating or electricity production.Secondary Biofuels- These are produced from processed biomass, which include liquid ethanol and biodesel for use in industrial processes and vehicles.

What is Bio-Ethanol?

Bio-ethanol is an alcohol produced from the fermentation of plant waste.It can be produced from wheat and paddy straw, biomass, bamboo, bagassee, feed stock, segregated municipal waste etc.The fermentation process is similar to that used for making wine or beer, but pure ethanol is obtained by distillation.Ethanol can be blended with petrol or burned in almost pure form in modified spark-ignition engines.A litre of ethanol contains approximately two thirds of the energy provided by a litre of petrol.However, when mixed with petrol, it improves the combustion performance and lowers the emissions of sulphur oxide and carbon monoxide.