• Journal of The Korean Society of Grassland and Forage Science
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.129-138
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• 2008

Demand for alternatives to petroleum is increasing the production of biofuels from food crops such as corn, soybeans, sorghum and sugarcane, etc. At least for the next 5 years, ethanol demand will be increased greatly in the United States and in the world. Presently, most ethanol produced in the United States is corn (Zea mays) ethanol. As a result, especially in the Americas and Southeast Asia, agricultural land is diverted to biofuel production. Even though biofuel industry has many advantage including national security, economical, energetical and sustainable impacts, it is driving grain prices up and creating considerable concern about the potential negative impacts on a wide range of food products that depend on gain : chicken, pork, beef, and dairy products such as milk, cheese, yoghurt, cream and ice cream. Feedstock crops are crops such as switchgrass(Panicum virgatum, L.), corn stover and grasses that can be used in industrial processes such as fermentation into alcohol fuels. Feedstock is no compete with food. Furthermore it is friendly environmental bioenergy crops. In Korea, with increasing demand for fossil fuels the exploration of alternative sources of liquid fuel is inevitable. I suggest Korea need to research and to develop actively on feedstock for biofuel production through this review.

• Plant Biotechnology Reports
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2011

Secondary walls have recently drawn research interest as a primary source of sugars for liquid biofuel production. Secondary walls are composed of a complex mixture of the structural polymers cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. A matrix of hemicellulose and lignin surrounds the cellulose component of the plant's cell wall in order to protect the cell from enzymatic attacks. Such resistance, along with the variability seen in the proportions of the major components of the mixture, presents process design and operating challenges to the bioconversion of lignocellulosic biomass to fuel. Expanding bioenergy production to the commercial scale will require a significant improvement in the growth of feedstock as well as in its quality. Plant biotechnology offers an efficient means to create "targeted" changes in the chemical and physical properties of the resulting biomass through pathway-specific manipulation of metabolisms. The successful use of the genetic engineering approach largely depends on the development of two enabling tools: (1) the discovery of regulatory genes involved in key pathways that determine the quantity and quality of the biomass, and (2) utility promoters that can drive the expression of the introduced genes in a highly controlled manner spatially and/or temporally. In this review, we summarize the current understanding of the transcriptional regulatory network that controls secondary wall biosynthesis and discuss experimental approaches to developing-xylem-specific utility promoters.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.12-18
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• 2014

The objective of this work is to produce solid biofuel from sawdust using the HTC (Hydrothermal carbonization) process. The HTC process of feedstock involves the raw material coming into contact with high temperature and pressurized water. The HTC process could produce gaseous, liquefied and solid products, but this study focused on solid product only as an alternative to coal. In this study, sawdust used for a feedstock and its moisture content was under 5%. Water was added with the feedstock to raise moisture content to 80% and also used catalysts. The HTC process was performed at temperature range from 200 to $270^{\circ}C$ and reaction time was 15 to 120 min. Rising temperature resulted in increasing the higher heating value (HHV) of HTC product. In case of adding catalyst, HHV of solid biofuel was higher and reaction occurred at lower temperature and pressure. Also, HTC solid product had been characterized and found to be hydrophobic, increased HHV (over 40%), and pelletized easily compared to raw material.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.49-77
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• 2021

This study uses a choice experiment approach to examine whether different types of feedstocks as well as other attributes such as the cost of bioethanol, bioethanol blending ratio, and government support policies affect consumers' biofuel preferences. We apply a standard conditional logit model, a mixed logit model (MLM), and individual coefficient estimation model (ICM) to estimate the parameters of the investigated attributes. The results show that people prefer domestic and non-food feedstock, along with tax exemption as a support policy. All the attributes show unobservable preference heterogeneity in the MLM and ICM. In particular, willingness to pay for attributes are higher in the genetically modified (GM) feedstock-unknown group than in the known one. We show the importance of using domestic and non-food feedstocks and managing GM feedstocks carefully to avoid consumer resistance when producing bioethanol in South Korea.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.33-43
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• 2013

The objective of this paper is to provide a review on the latest development on the main initiative and approaches for the sustainability criteria for biofuels. A large number of national and international initiative lately experienced rapid development in the review of the biofuels targets announced in the European Union (EU), United States (US) and other countries worldwide. The global biofuel targets are likely to have a strong impact on land use and agricultural markets. Although biofuels production provides new options for using agricultural crops, there are environmental, social and economic concerns associated with biofuel production. The diversity of feedstock, large number of biofuels pathway an their complexity lead to a high uncertainty over the greenhouse gas (GHG) performances of biofuels, in terms of GHG emission reductions compared to the fossil fuels, expecially if land use change is involved. This paper describes an overview of current status of ongoing certification initiative in Europe and worldwide for biofuels sustainability. It also provides mandatory requirements as part of an sustainability scheme in EU, United Kingdom, US and international approaches and should be reviewed to introduce based on global trends in Korea.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.30 no.8
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• pp.1235-1243
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• 2020

The use of microalgal biomass as feedstock for biofuels has been discussed for decades as it provides a sustainable approach to producing fuels for the future. Nonetheless, its feasibility has not been established yet and various aspects of biomass applications such as CO₂ biofixation should also be explored. Therefore, in this study, the CO₂ biofixation and lipid/carbohydrate production potential of Chlorella sp. ABC-001 were examined under various nitrogen concentrations. The highest biomass productivity and CO₂ biofixation rate of 0.422 g/l/d and 0.683 g/l/d, respectively, were achieved under a nitrogen-rich condition (15 mM nitrate). Carbohydrate content was generally proportional to initial nitrate concentration and showed the highest value of 41.5% with 15 mM. However, lipid content showed an inverse relationship with nitrogen supplementation and showed the highest value of 47.4% with 2.5 mM. In consideration as feedstock for biofuels (bioethanol, biodiesel, and biogas), the sum of carbohydrate and lipid contents were examined and the highest value of 79.6% was achieved under low nitrogen condition (2.5 mM). For lipid-based biofuel production, low nitrogen supplementation should be pursued. However, considering the lower feasibility of biodiesel, pursuing CO₂ biofixation and the production of carbohydrate-based fuels under nitrogen-rich condition might be more rational. Thus, nitrogen status as a cultivation strategy must be optimized according to the objective, and this was confirmed with the promising alga Chlorella sp. ABC-001.

• Journal of the Korean Applied Science and Technology
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.688-700
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• 2013

The potential of biodiesel production technology using lipids extracted from sewage sludge was investigated. Despite the bright prospect of biodiesel production, efforts to commercialize it have been very limited. One of the major obstacles has been the high price associated with refined oil feedstock, which makes up nearly 70-75% of the total production costs. Hence, in order to reduce the cost of biodiesel production, using cheaper feedstock such as waste oil or low-quality oil has been proposed. Especially, sewage sludge, a relatively inexpensive feedstock, is a promising raw material for such a purpose. In this study, it is aimed to review biodiesel production technology from sewage sludge as a lipid feedstock. It is process modifications to combine the oil extraction steps, fuel conversion steps (i.e. in situ transesterification, thermo-chemical process with non-catalytic heterogeneous biodiesel production) and fuel quality from sewage sludge.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2010

Biodiesel is a type of biofuel obtained from bioresources and able to use in diesel vehicles as an alternative/additive to petro diesel. In recent biodiesel research, there are three main issues which include high quality biodiesel, low cost feed stock and a highly efficient biodiesel production process. The sustainable production and use of biodiesel are attracting much attention in the renewable energy field. In this paper, we review some of the literatures related to environmental and economic evaluation for biodiesel production and analysis the issues including life cycle assessment (LCA), global warming potential (GWP), energy consumption, biodiesel production cost, production technologies and feedstock.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.23 no.10
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• pp.1460-1471
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• 2013

Microalgal biofuel production from wastewater has economic and environmental advantages. This article investigates the lipid production from high chemical oxygen demand (COD) bioethanol wastewater without dilution or additional nutrients, using a newly isolated heterotrophic microalga, Chlorella vulgaris LAM-Q. To enhance lipid accumulation, the combined effects of important operational parameters were studied via response surface methodology. The optimal conditions were found to be temperature of $22.8^{\circ}C$, initial pH of 6.7, and inoculum density of $1.2{\times}10^8cells/ml$. Under these conditions, the lipid productivity reached 195.96 mg/l/d, which was markedly higher than previously reported values in similar systems. According to the fatty acid composition, the obtained lipids were suitable feedstock for biodiesel production. Meanwhile, 61.40% of COD, 51.24% of total nitrogen, and 58.76% of total phosphorus were removed from the bioethanol wastewater during microalgal growth. In addition, 19.17% of the energy contained in the wastewater was transferred to the microalgal biomass in the fermentation process. These findings suggest that C. vulgaris LAM-Q can efficiently produce lipids from high-concentration bioethanol wastewater, and simultaneously performs wastewater treatment.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.365-384
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• 2012

Microalgae are photosynthetic microorganisms that are highly productive in the presence of basic renewable natural sources (light, $CO_2$, water and nutrients). They can synthesize lipids, carbohydrates and proteins in a small number of days. Subsequently, these carbon-captured products can be processed into both biofuels and valuable co-products. Additionally, microalgae would be an ideal feedstock for replacing land-based food crops with cellular products as high energy density transportation fuels. These microscopic organisms could contribute a significant amount of renewable energy on a global scale. In Korea, microalgae biofuel research was common in the early 1990s. The research activities were unfortunately stopped due to limited governmental funds and low petroleum prices. Interest in algal biofuels in Korea has been growing recently due to an increased concern over oil prices, energy security, greenhouse gas emissions, and the potential for other biofuel feedstock to compete for limited agricultural resources. The high productivity of microalgae suggests that much of the Korean transportation fuel requirements can be met by biofuels at a production cost competitive with the increasing cost of petroleum seen in early 2008. At this time, the development of microlalgal biomass production technology remains in its infancy. This study reviewed microalgae culture systems and biomass production, harvesting, oil extraction, conversion, and technoeconomical bottlenecks. Many technical and economic barriers to using microalgal biofuels need to be overcome before mass production of microalgal-derived fuel substitutes is possible. However, serious efforts to overcome these barriers could become a large-scale commercial reality. Overall, this study provides a brief overview of the past few decades of global microalgal research.