Biofuels and Sustainability: Life Cycle Assessments, System Biology, Policies, and Emerging Technologies

Biofuels and Sustainability: Life-cycle Assessments, System Biology, Policies, and Emerging Technologies presents the current progress and challenges related to the sustainability of biofuels. Addressing a wide range of issues, the book examines the methods and technologies, policies for sustainable biofuels, impacts of advanced fuels, recent advances, and future research prospects. Reflecting new developments, emphasis is given to new biological/biochemical approaches that offer the most efficient, cost-effective, and sustainable strategies for biofuel production.

Divided into five parts, the first provides an overview of biofuels, the need for alternate fuels, carbon footprints, life cycle assessments, environmental aspects, various generations of biofuels, biofuel production from lignocellulosic material, and artificial intelligence in biofuel production. Part 2 examines the various methods and technologies for biofuels production, with case studies from the USA, UK, and Brazil. Part 3 explores the policies for sustainable biofuels, including current standards, with applications from the USA, European Union, Asia, and Africa. Part 4 analyses the impacts of advanced fuels in the decarbonization of transport, climate change mitigation, sustainable agriculture, and water resources, with perspectives from developed and developing countries. Finally, Part 5 critically reviews the recent advances and future research prospects related to termites, insects, metabolic engineering, microorganisms, and bioreactors.

• Provides carbon footprints and lifecycle assessments of biofuel and bioproduct production from 2nd and 3rd generation feedstocks and compliance with the international standards
• Highlights the emerging applications of systems biology in biofuel and bioenergy production, including biomimetics and protein engineering
• Analyzes the sustainable production of biofuels at various stages, such as feedstock production, biomass pre-treatment and novel bioprospection
• Explains the technological challenges of biofuel production, designing novel bioreactors, and value-added processing of biofuel residues
• Discusses and analyses biofuel and bioenergy policies from various countries and various regions of the world

Prof. Zhu has more than 15 years of teaching and research experience after obtaining PhD degree. Dr. Daochen Zhu is currently working as a Professor at Biofuel Institute, School of the Environment and Safety Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China. He is a reviewer and editorial board member of various peer-reviewed journals of international repute. His research group mainly focuses on microorganism resource and diversity, Enzyme mediated valorization of lignin into value added commodity products, and biodegradation of organic pollutants. He is also interested in the mitigation of microplastic through bioremediation technology. Dr. Zhu has over 50 peer-reviewed publications, 12 patents, and 4 book chapters and three edited books to his credit with international repute.

Dr. Dar have more than 3 years of teaching and research experience after obtaining PhD degree. Dr. Mudasir Ahmad Dar is working as an Associate Professor, at Biofuel Institute, School of the Environment and Safety Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China. He is currently working to design a novel biorefinery model adapted from the termite-bacteria symbiosis via biomimetic strategies. He completed his postdoctoral studies from the Jiangsu University, China. He has completed his masters in Zoology from University of Pune, Maharashtra with First Division. After completing his master’s, he pursued Ph.D. from the Savitribai Phule Pune University, Maharashtra, under the supervision of Prof. R. S. Pandit on the topic entitled, Bioprospection of symbiotic gut-bacteria from the snails for agro-waste disposal management. He is highly interested to work on Biofuels; Environmental biotechnology; Bioremediation, Systems biology; Gut-microbiome; Bioprospection; and modeling insects for biotechnological applications.

Dr. Shahnawaz have more than 6 years of teaching and research experience after obtaining his doctoral degree. Recently, Dr. Mohd. Shahnawaz got selected as an Associate Professor at Biofuel Institute, School of the Environment and Safety Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China. In 2020, he got selected as a postdoc fellow at Yeungnam University, South Korea; however, due to the COVID-19 scenario, he was not able to join. He has several years of teaching and postdoctoral research experience. Dr. Shahnawaz worked on bioremediation of polythene at the Botany Department, SP Pune University, during his doctoral research with Prof. A. B. Ade. He is recipient of various fellowships awarded by the SPPU, UGC-BSR, UGC-MANF, and DST-SERB. His research interest is in Biofuels, Microbiology, Bioremediation, and Plant Biotechnology. Besides working on the bioconversion of lignocellulosic biomass into biofuels, he is also focused on the mitigation of microplastic using bioremediation technology.