Bioenergy

In view of the excessive use of fossil energy which damage to the air and vegetation, a renewable bioenergy draws more and more attention. Biomass energy is energy generated by living or once-living organisms. The most common biomass materials used for energy are plants, such as corn and soy. Plants capture the energy from sun by the process of photosynthesis, and then by passing through different pathways various kind of biochemicals are generated, along with bioenergy, which may be used for heating, transport and electricity generation purpose.

Bioenergy Production Technologies

Generally, there are two different technologies to converse biomass into bioenergy, namely (i) biochemical conversion technology (which gives liquid product like biogas, bioethanol, biodiesel etc.) and (ii) thermo-chemical conversion technology (which gives solid, liquid, gaseous products like charcoal, syngas etc.) ^[1].

Biochemical conversion technology

Anaerobic digestion (AD) and the fermentation are two main methods of biochemical conversion technology. AD uses microbial communities for converting the organic substances into gaseous fuel. Fermentation is biochemical conversion technology that used to produce chemicals, biofuels, medicines.

Thermo-chemical conversion technology

Thermochemical technologies produce gaseous or liquid intermediate products that can be transformed to higher value energy (transportation fuels, electricity etc.). The conversion methods of biomass into fuel include pyrolysis, torrefaction, gasification, liquefaction and combustion in thermochemical conversion technology, etc.

Features of Bioenergy

Advantages

a renewable form of energy which is an excellent alternatives to fossil fuels
a reliable resource that can produce energy at any time
without issue of limited availability
taking waste that would otherwise sit in a landfill and making it useful
a carbon-neutral energy source

Disadvantages

sacrificing natural areas to managed monoculture.
contaminating waterways with agricultural pollutants
threatening food supplies or farm lifestyles through competition for land
increasing net emissions of carbon to the atmosphere
with high price
not as efficient as other energy sources right now

Future Development of Bioenergy

The future of bioenergy is dependent on the complex interplay of four major factors ^[2]:

development of conversion technology and the prospects for using new plant and microbe varieties as well as novel biomass.
improving intrinsic productive capacity of the land and ocean ecosystems that can be used for biomass energy production.
alternative uses for the land and water resources that are candidate sites for biomass energy production.
offsite implications of bioenergy technologies for invasive species and for levels of air and water pollution.

These factors must be effectively integrated to maximize the benefits and minimize the ecosystem and societal costs of biomass energy production.

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References

Meena, M., Shubham, S., Paritosh, K., Pareek, N., & Vivekanand, V. Production of biofuels from biomass: Predicting the energy employing artificial intelligence modelling. Bioresource Technology, 2021, 340, 125642.
FIELD, C., CAMPBELL, J., & LOBELL, D. Biomass energy: the scale of the potential resource. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 2008, 23(2), 65–72.