Biorenewable chemicals: Feedstocks, technologies and the conflict with food production

Soubhik K. Bardhan, Shelaka Gupta, M.E. Gorman and M. Ali Haider

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2015, vol. 51, issue C, 506-520

Abstract: Volatile petroleum product prices along with depleting resources of oil and increasing environmental concerns had prompted several government agencies to promote and subsidize the production of biofuels from edible crops. The alarming rate at which edible crops were being deviated to produce biofuels caused the price of food crops like corn to shoot by a margin of over 100% in the initial three years (2005–2007). The twenty-first century has so far witnessed an enormous growth in production of biorenewable chemicals. The economically more lucrative business of biorenewable chemicals is currently projected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 22.4% and account for 45% of the chemicals produced in the US by 2025. This calls for a thoughtful regulation of the parameters, which should be considered for the production of biorenewable chemicals, in order to avoid any direct conflict with food production. This study addresses the possible edible and non-edible feedstock sources, conversion technologies used, conflict with food production accessed in terms of market scenario, environmental concerns and availability of land area for the effective conversion of the individual generation of feedstocks to biorenewable chemicals.

Keywords: Platform molecules; Edible and non-edible biomass; Fermentation; Chemical conversions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032115005833
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:rensus:v:51:y:2015:i:c:p:506-520

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/600126/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 600126/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2015.06.013

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews is currently edited by L. Kazmerski

More articles in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().