Promising agricultural waste for biofuel production

The article analyzes the current state and prospects of biofuel production using agricultural waste. Biofuels such as biogas, biodiesel, bioethanol, and biohydrogen are considered. The composition of the main types of agricultural biomass in cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin is presented. The scheme of conversion of agricultural raw materials into liquid biofuel; schemes for producing biogas, biohydrogen, bioethanol, and biodiesel from agricultural waste; methods for obtaining biohydrogen from agricultural waste; methods for producing biodiesel and bioethanol from agricultural waste are considered. Pretreatment plays an important role in biofuel production. Accurate pretreatment methods can definitely improve the absorption of fermentable sugars after enzymatic saccharification, thereby increasing the efficiency of the entire process. Agricultural waste from crops with high energy content (e.g., beet, corn, and wheat) represent a great prospect for anaerobic digestion. It is noted that biodiesel and bioethanol are used as alternative fuels to diesel and gasoline, respectively, and such available biotechnological methods as expanding the range of biomass feedstock and increasing the efficiency of converting biomass into biofuels can be used to increase bioenergy production. Currently, direct conversion of hydrogen from sunlight can provide higher hypothetical opportunities compared to the 0.2-2.6% efficiency of photosynthesis in energy crops. However, the technical and practical viability of such technologies requires their revision, and the cost of maintaining a photobioreactor will also be a major issue.