ISSN 2070�0504, Catalysis in Industry, 2011, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 1–3. © Pleiades Publishing, Ltd., 2011.Original Russian Text © S.D. Varfolomeev, 2011, published in Kataliz v Promyshlennosti.

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Renewable energy, the stores of which are replen�ished naturally by the flow of solar radiation arriving atthe Earth’s surface, has satisfied man’s main needs(heat, food, fuel) throughout the development ofhuman civilization. In a very short period of humandevelopment (19th–20th centuries) a notable contri�bution was made to this natural process by the addi�tional sources of solar energy preserved for millions ofyears as coal, oil, and gas. In recent decades, nuclearenergy, the development of which began in the secondhalf of the 20th century, joined these.

The world history of hydrocarbon use on a globalhistorical scale is as short as it is dramatic: the limits oftraditional fuel hydrocarbon fuel energy had becomeapparent by the second half of the 20th century, andthe world had begun to devote considerable attentionto renewable sources of energy, due mainly to thedepletion of fossil resources and the substantial eco�logical damage from traditional sources of energy. Oneof the first to point this out was Nobel Prize winnerAcademician N. N. Semenov (1974) [1].

The relatively low densities of energy flows presenttechnological difficulties for the application of renew�able energy. The production of electricity at modernhydropower plants nevertheless employs quite tradi�tional methods. The technological procedure thatprovides mankind with food—agriculture—is almostcompletely based on the Sun’s energy. Even today,agriculture remains a branch of the power industry (inthe broad sense of the term) to which there is no alter�native, as it involves the technological synthesis ofenergy�rich compounds that provide fuel for both ani�mals and man.

The above methods for utilizing solar energy havebecome widespread because convenient and practica�ble methods for their application were developed andcorresponding modern hydroelectric and agriculturaltechnologies were created. New, technologically sig�nificant ways of applying solar energy have been devel�oped in recent decades: the direct transformation oflight into electrical energy (through the use of trans�formers and solar panels), the conversion of windenergy, the production of electrical energy in concen�trated flows of light through heat engines, and the pro�

duction of biofuel. These methods for the use ofrenewable energy have now been commercialized on agrand scale and have become genuine rivals of tradi�tional fuels [2, 3].

The amount of renewable energy electrical gener�ating capacity introduced in Europe in 2009 (wind,solar panels, hydropower plants, biofuel, concentratedsunlight) is 1.35 times greater than the new capacitybased on traditional energy carriers (gas, oil, coal,nuclear energy). Our times are a turning point atwhich the overall introduction of new capacity basedon the use of renewable energy has exceeded the over�all introduction of capacity associated with traditionalenergy sources based on fossil fuel.

Most of the world’s oil goes to produce liquid fuel forautomobiles. Demand for this type of energy carrier isconstantly growing in as a result of the automobilizationof China, India, and South America. Technologies forthe production of automobile fuel from bioresourcescontinue to develop exponentially. Sources of raw mate�rial are becoming ever more diverse: raw grain, farmwastes, lignocellulosic materials, microscopic algae, andso on. Biofuels are energy�rich compounds used as fuelsbut obtained from renewable raw materials by chemicaland biotechnological methods [4, 5]. This wide range ofcompounds includes hydrogen, methane, ethanol,biodiesel fuel, butanol, bioketals, bio oil (products of bio�mass pyrolysis), bionitrile, and so on. Total world pro�duction of biofuels for automobiles is doubling every 2.5–3.5 years. The figure shows data on the dynamics of worldoil production (curve A), biodiesel fuel, and bioethanol(curve B). The total production of bioethanol and biodie�sel fuel in the coming 15–25 years could compare to thevolumes of the total world oil production.

It should be always remembered that the amount offossil fuels is limited. In addition, the production ofraw hydrocarbons is becoming more expensive. Worlddemand for raw hydrocarbons is stabilizing and willsoon begin to wane. This will occur not in the indefi�nite future, but in the next 10–15 years.

In Russia, investigations on renewable energy andbiofuels are nowadays concentrated mainly in theinstitutions of the Russian Academy of Sciences and inMoscow State University. The strategy behind these

BIOCATALYSIS

Biofuels: Energy Carriers from Renewable Raw MaterialS. D. Varfolomeev

Emanuel Institute of Biochemical Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences, ul. Kosygina 4, Moscow, 119334 RussiaFaculty of Chemistry, Moscow State University, Leninskie gory 1, str. 3, Moscow, 119991 Russia

Received July 8, 2010

DOI: 10.1134/S2070050411010168

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CATALYSIS IN INDUSTRY Vol. 3 No. 1 2011

VARFOLOMEEV

efforts was laid out by Academician N. N. Semenov in1978, creator of the USSR Academy of Sciences’ Sci�entific Council for Finding New Ways of Using SolarEnergy. The council comprised sections on photoelec�tricity (headed by Corresponding Member and laterAcademician and Nobel Prize winner Zh.I. Alferov),biofuel, wind energy, and investigating the possibilitiesfor the transformation of solar energy by heat engines.

A unique industry for producing bioethanol via thetransformation of lignocellulosic raw material [6] wasestablished in the Soviet Union in those years, andindustrial facilities for producing biogas from farmwastes were constructed.

Having a relatively favorable climate for agricultureand the cultivation of forests, Russia has unique possi�bilities for the production of bioenergy carriers. Interms of energy content, the wastes from today’s agri�culture alone could enable the country to increase itsproduction of automobile fuel many times over. Everyyear, Russia produces around 100 million metric tonsof grain and 120–200 million metric tons of waste inthe form of plant biomass. In terms of energy content,this source corresponds to 55–95 million metric tonsof gasoline. The country’s total annual volume of agri�cultural waste and waste from the timber industry is300–350 million tons. For the sake of comparison,30–33 million metric tons of gasoline is consumed inRussia annually.

Renewable energy is the key to the development ofSiberia and the Russian Far East. China is followingthe very same route by orienting its northwesternregions toward using renewable sources of energy.

Growth in the production of renewable energy isdetermined primarily by its economic demand. In

terms of cost, biofuels are now comparable to tradi�tional automobile fuels. The price of one liter of fuelethanol in the United States and Europe is $0.5–0.7,while that of one liter of biodiesel fuel is $0.5–0.8. Ithas been shown that once the price of oil rises above$60 a barrel, biofuel production becomes economi�cally profitable.

Renewable energy and bioenergy carriers have sev�eral undeniable advantages:

– virtually infinite volume of resources and acces�sibility in any region of the world;

– environmental friendliness, the fundamentalsolution to problems associated with the planet’s glo�bal warming and the release of greenhouse gases;

– independence from oil� and gas�producingcountries;

– a more even distribution of energy productionand consumption and elimination of the need to usesystems with extremely high energy densities;

– elimination of resource�intensive and vulnerablesystems of transporting energy (transmission lines,pipelines, and so on).

These advantages make renewable energy the onlyone we need and to which there is no alternative. Theconversion to new full�scale sources of energy is nowunderway.

Technologies for the production of bioenergy carri�ers are being developed around the world. There arethree basic problems in producing a new generation offuels:

1. The processes of biomass pretreatment. Plantbiomass is a blend of complicated chemical composi�tion in which biopolymers of the cellulose, hemicellu�lose, and lignin types predominate. A qualitatively newlevel of the processes of depolymerization and struc�tural unification of renewable raw material is required.

2. As in most chemical processes, catalysis is thekey problem in moving the process to a realistic tech�nological level. The wide variety of chemical struc�tures and the complex composition of renewable rawmaterial makes the problem of creating catalystsextremely complicated. Realistic solutions in this fieldare to use microbial and biotechnological processes ora combination of chemical and biotechnologicalstages.

3. Modern techniques include highly efficientstages for the separation of reaction products. Themost vital of these are membrane processes for com�pound separation.

This special issue of the journal is dedicated to con�sidering the above problems of biofuel production.

The production of fuel from biomass is based oncontemporary achievements in catalysis, microbiol�ogy and biotechnology, chemical enzymology, and thephysics and chemistry of modern separating processes.The interdisciplinary character of the problem isreflected by the articles presented in this special issue.

10000

1000

100

10203020252015201020052000 2020

Year

Volume of production, millions of metric tons

Oil production

Productionof bioethanol

A

B

and biodiesel fuel

Figure. Data on the dynamics of (A) world oil productionand (B) bioethanol and biodiesel fuel production. Thedashed line is an extrapolation of two possible ways ofincreasing production.

CATALYSIS IN INDUSTRY Vol. 3 No. 1 2011

BIOFUELS: ENERGY CARRIERS FROM RENEWABLE RAW MATERIAL 3

The depolymerization of natural biopolymers (cel�lulose, hemicellulose, lignin, and proteins) is the mostlimiting and energy� and labor�consuming stage ofconverting biomass to fuel. Now under developmentare various mechanical and chemical processes, fer�mentation methods of hydrolysis, and techniques forultrasound pretreatment.

The production of bioalcohols and biodiesel fuel isone line of today’s scientific research and engineering.The processes for producing ethanol, butanol, andesters of fatty acids are subject to continual improve�ment. In this issue of the journal, we discuss the cre�ation of new heterogenous biocatalysts and sources oflipids, and methods for transforming them intobiodiesel fuel.

The variety of biofuels is continually growing. By�products from the production of bioalcohols andbiodiesel fuel, e.g., glycerol and pentosans, can bechemically modified into bioketals—high�octaneadditives to traditional fuels for internal combustionengines.

Hydrogen power is one today’s most promisingfields. Hydrogen is the fuel richest in energy and mostenvironmentally friendly. The problem lies in hydro�gen being a poorly accessible and expensive fuel. Con�temporary methods of hydrogen production are basedon the use of natural gas. The microbiological synthe�sis of hydrogen from biomass or the creation of anenergy cycle of the biophotolysis of water with the sep�

arate production of hydrogen and oxygen is attractivehighly intriguing scientific and technical problem. Theenergy of the obtained hydrogen can be directly con�verted into electrical energy using state�of�the�artenzymatic fuel elements.

Any scientific or technical problem in the field oflarge�scale fuel technology is associated with com�pound separation. The present�day solution to suchproblems is based on the processes of membrane sep�aration, to which one of the articles of this special issueis dedicated.

REFERENCES

1. Semenov, N.N., Izbrannye trudy (Selected Transac�tions), Moscow: Nauka, 2006, vol. 4.

2. Moiseev, I.I., Plate, N.A., and Varfolomeev, S.D., HeraldRuss. Akad. Sci., 2006, vol. 76, no. 5, pp. 427–437.

3. Varfolomeev, S.D., Moiseev, I.I., and Myasoedov, B.F.,Vestn. Ross. Akad. Nauk, 2009, vol. 79, no. 7, pp. 595–607 (Herald of the Russian Acad. Sci. (Engl. Transl.),2009, vol. 79, no. 4, pp. 334–344).

4. Varfolomeev, S.D., Kalyuzhnyi, S.V., and Medman, D.Ya.,Usp. Khim., 1988, vol. 57, no. 7, pp. 1201–1231.

5. Varfolomeev, S.D., Efremenko, E.N., and Krylova, L.P.,Usp. Khim., 2010, vol. 79, no. 6.

6. Khol’kin, Yu.I., Tekhnologiya gidroliznykh proizvodstv(Technology of Hydrolysis Productions), Moscow:Lesnaya promyshlennost’, 1989.