Clean Energy Transition-via-Biomass Resource Utilization : A Way to Mitigate Climate Change

This book highlights clean energy transition via sustainable utilization of biomass resources, viz. forestry, agriculture, agroforestry, grassland, and seaweeds to climate change mitigation.

Bioresources have tremendous potential to mitigate global warming. Also, biomass is expected to play a multifunctional role including food production, source of energy and fodder, biodiversity conservation, and yield of goods and services to the society. It brings together perspectives of various communities involved in the research and regulation of bioenergy deployment in the context of climate change mitigation. The book presents the way forward to policy makers and stakeholders involved with bioenergy development. This development may be directive challenges in the transport sector where options such as hydrogen and electric vehicles relying on hydro, wind, and solar PV will require decades to become established on a substantial scale. Furthermore, meeting ambitious climate change targets will also require environment-friendly fuels in air and marine transport where no alternative to biofuels is currently available.

The process design-via-onion model for sustainable utilization of biomass resources is also one of the most important subjects of the book. This book includes state-of-the-art approaches on bottlenecks and circular economy analysis for biomass energy use to reduce climate change and sustainability frameworks to guide bioenergy development.

Dr. Sachin Kumar is a deputy director in the Biochemical Conversion Division at the Sardar Swaran Singh National Institute of Bio-Energy (Formerly Sardar Swaran Singh National Institute of Renewable Energy), Kapurthala, India. He obtained his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, India. He has more than 12 years of research experience in Biochemical Conversion of Biomass to Biofuels including lignocellulosic ethanol, biogas, biohydrogen, etc. During his career at SSS-NIBE, he has developed the state-of-the-art laboratory facilities for Biochemical Conversion of Biomass to Biofuels. His research interests are in biofuels, including bioethanol, biogas, biobutanol, biohydrogen, algal biomass, bioprocess engineering, enzyme technology, metabolic engineering, etc.

Dr. Suresh Sundaramurthy  is a faculty and head of the Department, Chemical Engineering, Maulana Azad-National Institute of Technology (MA-NIT) Bhopal, India. He obtained his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, India. He was the recipient of Post-Doctoral Fellow awarded by IUSSTF, Govt. of India, and that time, he was associated at The City University of New York (CUNY), USA. He was also the recipient of Visiting Faculty and Researcher awarded by Govt. of India. More than 15 years’ experience for teaching/research from MA-NIT Bhopal, Pondicherry University, IIT-Kanpur, ICMS-JNCASR, Bangalore, AIT-Thailand and CUNY-USA. His teaching and research interest on Environmental Biotechnology, New sorbents & Catalysts, Reactor Design, Waste-to-Energy, Nanoengineered materials, biofuels and intermediates from CO2 and Biomass Decarbonization, Energy Transition, Technical Textiles, Gas separation, Air pollution abatement, Sensing of toxic gases, Process Safety.

Dr. Deepak Kumar is an Assistant Professor in the Chemical Engineering Department at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF). Dr. Kumar received his Ph.D. in Biological and Ecological Engineering from Oregon State University. His research focuses on the development of sustainable bioprocess technologies for the production of high-value bioproducts, bioplastics, and biofuel from agro-food processing waste and forest residues using integrated experimental and modeling approaches. He has authored more than 90 peer-reviewed research articles and 15 book chapters, with over 3200 citations and an H-index of 32. He has received several awards, including the Bioenergy Society of Singapore (BESS) Achievement Award 2016. He is listed as one of the top 2% cited scientists in the field of energy by the research conducted by Stanford University in collaboration with Elsevier-Scopus for the years 2022 and 2023.

Dr. Anuj Kumar Chandel is a Professor in the Department of Biotechnology, Engineering School of Lorena, University of São Paulo, Brazil. He has over 22 years of experience working on various aspects of industrial biotechnology (production of industrial enzymes, biofuels, and bio-based products) and membrane-based separation of fats, proteins, and viruses. He obtained his Ph.D. in 2009 and then did three post-doctoral fellowships at Stellenbosch University, South Africa; Engineering School of Lorena, University of São Paulo, Brazil, and University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, USA. Dr. Chandel has worked in 3 biotech industries for 7 years at large scale operations. His primary research interest is to develop sustainable processes for bioconversion of lignocellulosic biomass into renewable fuels and biochemicals by bridging the gap between research laboratories and industries. Dr. Chandel has published more than 116 peer reviewed scientific papers, edited 15 books and wrote 56 book chapters. He has one Brazilian patent to his credit.