What is Biofuel?

What is Biofuel?

Biofuel is generated from biomass materials through different types of treatments, and biomass sources such as plant waste, animal waste, crops, etc. These are the feedstock things to produce biofuels and these types of biomass are sustainable, renewable, and naturally replenished.

Types of Biofuel:

1.      Primary Biofuel

2.      Secondary Biofuel

Primary Biofuel

Primary biofuels are organic materials that directly act as an immediate energy source without going through any treatment. Timber, wood chips, pellets, wood blocks, and other types of plant waste are directly used for heating purposes in cooking and also used for generating electricity.

Secondary Biofuel

Secondary biofuel are organic material that cannot be used as an immediate energy source, it need to under processed and chemically treated to be utilized as a fuel. Biodiesel and bioethanol come under the secondary biofuels, these types of biofuel can be used in motor vehicles and other industrial purposes. Yet not commercialized to use the biodiesel and bioethanol in the transportation industry.

Forms of Biofuel:

1.      Solid biofuel

2.      Liquid biofuel

3.      Gas biofuel

What is Solid Biofuel?

               Solid biofuels are like small round woods, willow, grass, bark, wood blocks, etc… which are directly used for cooking purposes, heating, and producing electricity. Solid biofuels are low in cost and easy to transport when compared with liquid and gas biofuels.

What is Liquid Biofuel?  

               Liquid biofuels are processed fuels from solid biofuel, and liquid biofuels such as biodiesel, and bioethanol. These liquid fuels play an important role in the motor vehicle industry because liquid biofuels like biodiesel can be used in vehicle motors without any modification in the IC engines, liquid biofuels need high-safety transport when compared to solid biofuels.

What is Gas Biofuel?

Gas biofuels are produced from organic raw materials with the help of microbes which are known as microorganisms. Microbes undergo a digestion process in the biomass waste which creates methane gas, this methane gas is collected and purified by removing the impurities and carbon dioxide.

Will Biofuel replace the fossil fuel?  

Fossil fuel is a fuel which takes millions of years to form by the geological process, this fuel is very important as an energy source as of date and a major energy source for automobiles and industries. But the amount of fossil fuel available on the earth is becoming less so we need to search for alternative sources for fuel needs in this case biofuel plays a major role because biofuels are renewable resources. We can generate biofuel endlessly, the generation of biofuel comes under four categories listed below.

1.      First Generation of biofuel

2.      Second Generation biofuel

3.      Third Generation biofuel

4.      Fourth Generation of biofuel

First Generation Biofuel:

First-generation biofuels are derived from feedstock such as crops, sugar cane, wheat, corn, etc. These fuel products can be in a liquid or gaseous state, and this first-generation biofuel is mainly used for cooking, heating, and electricity. In first-generation biofuels food crops are grown only for making biofuels, the major drawback of these food crops is only used as feedstock. This will create a shortage of food crops around us.

Second Generation Biofuel:

Second-generation biofuels are derived from feedstock products that are not used as foods like agricultural waste, grasses, animal waste, etc…These wastes are mainly used as feedstock for generating biofuels. But this generation of biofuel has both advantages and disadvantages, the advantage is it doesn’t consume a lot of water and fertilizer when compared to the first generation, and the disadvantage is it quite difficult to extract the fuel from this kind of feedstock because it needs to go through some physical and chemical treatments.

Third Generation Biofuel:

Third-generation biofuels are developed from microalgae which are mostly found in marine conditions, these algae are extremely easy and rapid to produce, they can grow in ponds and don’t need any proper farmland or freshwater to grow. It contains high oil content so it can converted into biodiesel or bioethanol, these are the best biofuels to replace vehicle fuels. This type of biomass doesn’t affect the basic food chain. Yet this biofuel is not commercialized because of insufficient biomass production and high production costs.

Fourth Generation Biofuel:

               The genetically modified biomass is known as the fourth-generation biofuel, the biomass from second and third-generation biomass after genetic modification comes under fourth-generation feedstock. By enhancing the genetics the feedstock materials can grow on non-agricultural land or bodies of water and it can produce more biofuels when compared to the other generations, yet now a lot of research is going on in the fourth generation biofuels.

What are the disadvantages of Biofuel

·        More land and water are required to grow more plants and crops.

·        Water scarcity can occur due to more plant growth.

·        Lots of investments are needed to produce the biofuel.

·        Demand for foods and food prices will increase.

·        In colder climates, biofuel is less effective.

What are the advantages of Biofuel

·        Biofuel releases less pollution in the air.

·        Resources to produce biofuels are renewable.

·        Producing biofuels takes less lead time when compared to fossil fuels.

·        Lots of resources are there to produce biofuel.

·        Engines can run longer on biofuels and don’t need any necessary to change the current engine design for biofuel.

·        It will cut back on greenhouse gases.

 

Conclusion:

As per today’s condition, we are running out of fossil fuels so we need to look for alternative fuel energy sources, here biofuel becomes an excellent alternate fuel energy source. There are so many benefits if we consider biofuel as an alternative, creating biofuel requires very minimal days when compared to fossil fuel, and the transportation of biofuel is much cheaper. Every country will become self-sufficient in building up biofuels by creating their biomass. Even though biofuel has a lot of advantages still we need to do a lot of research to optimize the use of all types of biofuels.